Election Commission 'prepared' to tackle online disinformation to protect democracy

Gardaí have already commenced a criminal investigation into the role of far-right online agitators and their potential role in the riots last Thursday.

The newly-established Electoral Commission is “prepared” to regulate online disinformation in the run-up to elections, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Art O’Leary, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin, said the Government has yet to commence parts of the legislation that will give it powers to regulate online political advertising and online disinformation around elections, but that it will be soon hiring experts in the digital space to work in these areas.

“We will be recruiting in the first half of next year for people to work with us in the area of monitoring,” he said. 

“And it will be digital natives, who are comfortable dealing with this, and people who are used to working in a regulatory environment with skills in that particular area.” 

Concerns had been raised at the Oireachtas Housing Committee by Labour senator Rebecca Moynihan over the potential for “incitement” to hatred online.

She said that, in the last week when rioting took place in Dublin, there have been “outside actors who are for their nefarious means spreading online misinformation”.

Gardaí have already commenced a criminal investigation into the role of far-right online agitators and their potential role in the riots last Thursday.

Mr O’Leary said his body will be working closely with the new media regulator but that examples of the kinds of incitement described by Ms Moynihan may not be within the Electoral Commission’s remit, even during an election period.

“The definitions of misinformation, disinformation in the act are very specific,” he said. 

The remit of the Electoral Commission comes within false information being spread in relation to the likes of false voting times being reported or people being told their votes won’t be counted.

“That’s something we can easily correct,” Mr O’Leary said.

Reporting directly to the Oireachtas, the Electoral Commission acts independently of the Government and is intended to be central to the administration and protection of Ireland’s democratic processes.

In his opening statement, Mr O’Leary said a potentially very busy electoral period is looming “with the possibility of every possible type of electoral event — all eight — being held within the next 24 months”.

“We also have functions related to the regulation of online political advertising and online misinformation and disinformation around election periods,” he said. 

“These functions, set out in Parts 4 and 5 of our founding legislation have yet to be commenced.” 

In the area of online political advertising, he said they are also prepared to regulate in terms of transparency — who’s paying for adverts — and which cohort of society is being targeted.

“We’re prepared to be ambitious about how we target it,” he said.

Mr O’Leary said that they have many tools at their disposal in terms of individual posts online but that they require cooperation from social media companies. 

“We’re looking forward to engaging with them in the weeks and months ahead,” he said.

He added that the Electoral Commission is well placed in the sense that it is a new organisation, and comes into being at a time when it can be attuned and flexible to what's going on in the digital space.

“We’re building an agency now that suits the society in which we live,” he said. “Like most nine-month-olds, we’re crawling on the floor listening to everything that people are saying to us that we should be doing.”