Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Commission published notable research after President Von der Leyen's speech in December about the scale of the worrying trend of hate speech and hate crime, in particular the level of hatred manifested against, for example, the Roma community, Jews, Muslims, persons of Asian origin or those perceived to be of that origin, and the effect that had in terms of linked crimes in the communities. At EU level there has always been a strong statement against public incitement to hatred and hate speech, which comes from the very difficult background in Europe of post-Second World War efforts to solidify peace and stand against hate speech as it then was and as it has evolved. There is a real concern about how social media amplifies hate speech in considerable ways.

The use of the algorithm to amplify and excite through conflict is negative in itself and negative for users and society generally. It has a huge impact on democracy.

There have been important contributions about social media abuse of politicians, but the problem goes beyond that. It speaks to standards in democracy and the quality of the information people are getting. More and more over the past 20 years, we have seen in action the idea of taking a measure of dissent or concerns about a local problem generally and amplifying them into a criticism of the establishment, the way things are and the elites who are responsible. We have seen how that has been weaponised, not just politically but by states and other entities that would like to see the value of democracy, particularly western and European democracy, eroded over time. We have seen the amplification of local dissent into something much bigger throughout the Brexit referendum, for example, and during United States elections, particularly in 2016. This is a cause for serious concern and we must look at how we contribute to that ourselves.

There are two things going on in this regard. First is how we treat each other on social media and generally. The important work the Minister is doing in bringing in hate crime legislation will have a big effect on gender-based violence and on people with disabilities, where those characteristics are an aggravating factor in offences committed against people. Second, crucially, the EU must think about how it is going to stand against this weaponisation of information and the amplification of dissent, including by political parties, particularly populist parties that refuse to explain how difficult life is, how difficult financing things is and the constraints placed by constitutions, rules-based orders and finances on how decisions are made by governments on behalf of peoples, as though such matters were straightforward in business or even in running a household. It is important to deal with that level and to manage and control populism and expectations about what can be delivered for citizens. Some of the threats to democracy come from nefarious actors, whether organised criminal gangs or rogue states. All of these things are linked and how we manage social media amplification of dissent is very important, never more so than at this time, when there is not only a land-based war but an information-based war going on right across Europe and, as we have seen, right across western democracy for the past ten years.

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