Department of Defence wrote to Twitter about online harassment of officials 

The Department of Defence wrote to Twitter about anonymous accounts it said were engaged in online harassment of officials.

The Department of Defence wrote to Twitter about anonymous accounts it said were engaged in online harassment of officials.

One of the accounts, which was called 'DefenceIreland' and claimed to have been made up of former members of the Defence Forces, has since been shut down.

Internal emails reveal the account had been flagged by the department, which said it was among a number involved in a “growing trend of personal attacks on named officials”.

However, the department has declined to comment on whether it believes any member of staff was involved in any of the anonymous accounts.

It also refused to release records concerning “a management board meeting dealing with an HR [human resources] issue” relating to the Twitter account.

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Department of Defence had contacted colleagues in the Taoiseach’s office last July for advice on how to tackle troll accounts.

An email from an official at the Department of the Taoiseach to Twitter said: “A colleague in a different department has begun to notice a trend of abuse towards staff members on Twitter.

“Is there a particular approach they should take in addressing these issues or is there somebody they could get in touch with for advice?” 

In response, Twitter said the Department of Defence needed to be set up with access to what they called their “partner support portal”.

They also offered training to department officials which would include best practices on safety as well as account security.

A few days later, the Department of Defence contacted Twitter directly saying it would be keen to explore the options put forward.

An email said: “[Our colleague] in Government Information Services contacted you on my behalf last week in relation to certain abuse members of our departmental staff are getting on Twitter.” 

The message said they were planning to launch their own official Twitter account and said they would like to speak with somebody in advance, and also about getting a blue tick to verify their account.

The department also attached “the most recent offensive tweet” from the DefenceIreland Twitter account, which named a number of department officials and cast aspersions on their expertise and qualifications.

The email said: “I appreciate that there may not be too much that can be done at this stage but there is a growing trend of personal attacks on named officials which is a matter of concern.” 

Around the same time, the department began closely monitoring social media, according to separate records released to filmmaker Diarmuid Smyth.

Written reports on social media activity were issued to more than two dozen officials including the department secretary-general and the special adviser to Minister Simon Coveney.

The first instalment noted the banning of a parody Twitter account called DOD_Ireland.

It said: “This commentary was followed by a reply from @DefenceIreland questioning the legitimacy of the ban.” 

The DefenceIreland account featured in multiple other social media reports, along with other Twitter users who comment frequently on security and defence matters.

A department spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate to comment on individual human resources matters. She said: “Online trolling is unacceptable at any level. Intimidating people who are doing their job through this mechanism of an anonymised account is unacceptable. Those purporting to speak on behalf of the Defence Forces, as in this case, do not represent the fine men and women who serve.”