Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 November 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Session 4: International Collaboration

Mr. Adrian Lovett:

If one starts from a perspective of human rights, it does not answer the problem, at least not easily, but it does frame the challenge and the question. If we are clear that we are equally concerned about a range of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression but also the right not to be harmed in various ways, that has to be the starting point. The way we look at it, the disinformation and misinformation have three parts. First, there is deliberate, malicious intent, whether it is state-sponsored or otherwise. That was talked about today. I refer to intent to bring about an income systematically and in a very determined way. There is system design that creates perverse incentives and rewards. The teenagers in Macedonia churning out factually incorrect stories about Hillary Clinton's health, for example, did not in most cases have a political axe to grind. They figured out how to make a few euro. That was a result of the incentives created by the system. Then there are the unintended negative consequences of design, which also come with what we might argue are positives associated with the more open discourse we are now able to have online. It breaks down into those three areas, at least, and a different approach is required for each.

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