The only platform that refused to cooperate and take down “vile” posts was Elon Musk’s X, the justice minister said.
Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee has claimed that most social media companies complied with the government’s requests to take down posts during last week’s Dublin riots. However, Elon Musk’s X refused, the minister said on Wednesday.
The minister’s statement follows mass unrest that erupted in the republic’s capital last Thursday over the arrest of a man who stabbed five people, including three children, outside a primary school. A five-year-old girl and a woman in her 30s are in critical condition. The man was later found to be an Irish citizen who had immigrated from Algeria.
During the unrest, angry rioters ended up setting fire to buses and police cars, looting shops, and clashing with law enforcement. More than 30 people were arrested in the aftermath, with Garda Commissioner Drew Harris claiming that the unrest was the fault of “a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology.”
Taking questions in place of prime minister Leo Varadkar in the Irish parliament, McEntee was asked to comment on police claims that “far-right ringleaders” had used “sophisticated communication online” to gather and organize troops during the riots.
She responded by stating that the country’s security services were “actively engaging with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or X” to take down what she described as “vile messages.”
While most platforms were cooperating, “X were not. They did engage. They did not fulfill their own customer standards,” McEntee said.
In the aftermath of the riots, Musk, who owns the platform, publicly accused the Irish prime minister of “hating the Irish people” and conducting a “massive attack on freedom of speech.” That was after Varadkar had proposed a modernization of incitement to hatred laws, as well as more powers for police to punish “hate speech” against protected groups such as foreign nationals, LGBTQ members, and ethnic minorities.
Varadkar has also told Irish citizens that it was “totally wrong” to link immigration with crime following the knife attack that sparked the unrest, explaining that thousands more would come to the country because “Europe is paradise and Ireland is one of the best parts of paradise.”
Meanwhile, the country with a total population of just over 5 million people has been struggling to deal with unprecedented immigration, with 141,000 arriving between April 2022 and April 2023 alone, according to the Central Statistics Office.
Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio
Maybe the Irish government should investigate one of the countries councilors for hate speech
‘ Dublin Councilman Abul Kalam Azad Talukder has reportedly called for protesters to be “shot in the head or bring the public in and beat them until they die.”
Charming, I’m sure.
People in all countries need to tame their governments.
If the guy at the top is saying that then it is no surprise that the guy at the bottom is ar*e raping your 10 year old children.
“It’s “totally wrong” to link immigration with crime…”
-Someone clearly ignoring every conceivable statistic
Ireland was a paradise but people like Helen McEntee are trying hard to turn it into a crisis country with mass immigration so they can use said crisis to turn it to their agenda, these people are traitors and we need to run them off.
Governments all over the world use mass immigration to hide the state of economies, to destroy nationalism, passion for your own country, and unity of its people. What is wrong with looking after own own people first?
Why is New Zealand importing so many people when we have so many unemployed and people unable to afford basic housing? We are not short of land, we are not short of Job vacancies. Follow the money every single time. Successive governments including national and Labour have absolutely wrecked this country, Helen Clark and her working for families disincentivised people working overtime, encouraged poorer families to have more kids to get money, john key and his rock star economy fuelled by mass immigration with Stevie Joyce’s study for visa scam and allowing older New Zealanders to buy all the houses and rent them back to the young people who pay their (the older people) pensions with their tax money whilst having to save for their own retirement, pay off student debt, raise kids, and buy a house. The greed of the older generations is disgusting quite frankly. I am mid 50s and I have seen it all. Pensions should be income tested. If you are collecting thousands each week in rentals and still drawing a pension, it’s time to stand down and stop being so bloody greedy. Create some opportunities and hope for the young for goodness sake. I fear for the future of this country. Why have we allowed foreigners to buy NZ Houses? None of us wanted it yet our Governments have allowed it. Disgusting, we have foreigners renting houses to New Zealanders. Let’s not even mention that traitor Jacinda and her wreckless, Machiavellian cabinet. They have printed and laundered money to their mates and families while driving us further into the economic abyss. Nothing I repeat NOTHING has improved under Labour. I can’t name ONE thing they did to help this country. They should never see the halls of power ever again and God willing this is the end of the Labour Party for good. They are irrelevant liars and the media are their paid off bribed sycophants. Turn off your TVs if you haven’t already. Starve the beast of your attention. Don’t give them the clicks. Go woke go BROKE.
Anyway, that said – GO THE IRISH! Too many times the Irish have been driven out of their homes and treated disgustingly. I hope they fight back and fight back HARD against their corrupt government. Conor McGregor has the right idea, IN MY OPINION.
Rant over 😅