Unregulated social media is like the 'Wild West' – migration minister
Colm Brophy's comments at the ICTU-backed Stronger Together conference come against the background of the EU Digital Services Act and Donald Trump's threat to impose tariffs on countries enacting regulation of social media. Stock picture
The minister for migration has described the environment in which social media companies in Ireland operate as being the "wild west".
Minister for State and Dublin South West Fine Gael TD Colm Brophy was speaking at an anti-racism conference in Dublin.
He said the government strongly condemns all forms of racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and intolerance and that it is determined to stamp out hate-motivated crimes.
Going off-script to delegates at the ICTU-backed Stronger Together conference at the Communications Workers' Union headquarters, Mr Brophy said social media companies aren't doing enough to stop falsehoods.
It follows on from government attempts, through EU directives and Coimisiún na Meán, to bring more regulation to the workings of social media companies.
"I think there needs to be a serious reconsideration of how social media works particularly in the area of the dissemination of completely misleading and false information and the putting up, recording, and disseminating of videos depicting attacks on people," he said.
"This is the type of stuff that's totally unacceptable."
Last month, US president Donald Trump vowed to impose new tariffs on countries that put in place regulations or taxes affecting US technology companies.
His comments were taken as a threat against the EU’s digital rules to rein in companies such as Google, Apple, and Meta.
The EU’s Digital Services Act aims to regulate or ‘clean-up’ social media and online platforms.
While not mentioning any specific companies, Mr Brophy said free speech comes with rights and obligations. He said:
The comments were welcomed by the General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Eoin Reidy, who said many online companies are much more powerful than nation states.
At the same conference, Ebun Joseph, the Special Rapporteur for racial equality, criticised the government and various departments for doing what she called 'box-ticking' exercises in relation to tackling racism.
In July 2024, the Government announced Ms Joseph as Special Rapporteur for the National Plan Against Racism (NAPAR) which was published in 2023.
The plan is supposed to be implemented by the Department of Justice but Ms Joseph described that department as being 'massively' and inherently racist.
"All you need to do is look at who is working there," she said. "It cannot be that in 50, 60, 80 years of Ireland we cannot find minorities who can be in those spaces. If you look at the various departments, I don't think we have up to 1% of minorities. There is no government department that has even 1% of ethnic minorities working for them."
When asked if the Department of Justice can therefore be trusted to implement the national anti-racism plan if it is inherently racist, she said it could but only if it is monitored properly and made accountable by the taxpayer.
Also speaking at the conference, Irish Human Rights & Equality Commission chief commissioner Liam Herrick was asked about the possibility of Britain pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Herrick said Britain had “lost its mind in relation to refugee protection and migration”, adding that if Britain did pull out of the Convention, it would be a big threat to the protection of human rights on the island of Ireland.
"The situation in Britain is very serious," he said. "What you have got there is a toxic public discourse, about migrant rights, which is a race to the bottom.
"There's a danger that can happen here too; so that's why when government representatives [here] speak about deportations and migrants and be concerned about racism when it applies to workers and not other people, we need to be careful.”
