Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Social Media: Discussion (Resumed) with Google and Digital Rights Ireland

11:30 am

Mr. T. J. McIntyre:

I am reluctant to say anything about the particular case of the presidential election because I understand litigation is still pending. More generally, if a broadcaster lends its endorsement and lends its credibility to a particular tweet, that is a much more serious matter. As an individual I am entitled to discount what I read from some random tweeter, whereas I will give it more credibility if it comes from RTE. In that case, we have to think about looking more towards RTE than towards Twitter.