More regulation needed to root out online abusers of politicians

The overwhelming call from the National Women’s Council webinar is for social media companies to step up and start protecting women online. They also believe men need to be involved in the conversation around online abuse

Limerick councillor Elisa O’Donovan has experienced all kinds of abuse online and wants to see action taken to stamp it out.

Female politicians have described the current public conversation about the abuse of women in Irish life as “our MeToo movement”.

“This [abuse] is something we are seeing women experience across professions in Ireland, it’s like our MeToo movement and we all need to get together,” said Limerick councillor Elisa O’Donovan, who has experienced all kinds of abuse online.

She was speaking at a National Women’s Council webinar on Thursday, which discussed increasing female participation in politics by tackling social media abuse.

“There was a really powerful TV documentary on women in the military on Wednesday night, someone in the [online] chat [here] has mentioned Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), we have journalists taking defamation cases and it’s all the same abuse. It’s people wanting to diminish our voice in what were traditionally male-dominated professions,” said the councillor.

Other high-profile female politicians taking part included Ireland’s first black female African mayor — Fianna Fáil councillor Uruemu Adejinmi for Longford; Green Party chair and Dublin city councillor Hazel Chu; and Wicklow’s first openly gay councillor, Sinn Féin’s Grace McManus.

Ms O’Donovan said there needs to be some kind of “support network” for women in Irish life who experience online abuse.

The Far Right Observatory, which tracks hate speech and activity online in Ireland, told the Irish Examiner that the digital abuse some women receive is the result of a co-ordinated effort.

“Online misogyny has a lineage reaching from very fringe online spaces like images boards to the fringe political far-right movements in Ireland. Individuals and groups from both are actively involved in co-ordinating online abuse of women who hold political and social views opposing their own,” the spokesperson said.

Hazel Chu is worried that other females could be put off running in future elections. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

Each of the politicians spoke of their own experience receiving online abuse in Ireland. Cllr Chu, a former lord mayor of Dublin, explained how she was often told “to suck it up”.

“There is real trivialisation of this. People keep on thinking this is okay now because it’s prevalent, we just have to get over it. The amount of times I have been told by people: ‘Listen you just need to suck it up.’

You certainly don’t need to suck it up when you’re told you’re going to be raped for doing your job, you’re told you’re going to be assaulted, you’re told you’re crazy or if you’re told any of these things.

She also expressed the concern that by publicly talking about the abuse, other females considering running in future elections might decide against it.

“The only way we can change this game is by having more women in it,” she said.

There was a strong call for the regulation of social media companies  to tackle online abuse.

Ms Adejinmi said the companies were making enough money and should use some of it to protect its users.

“Everybody can hear the themes are pretty much the same between Hazel, Elisa, myself and Grace. There needs to be regulation of online platforms. I think that has to be sped up so that they are held accountable for any multiple breaches of whatever legislation is brought forward.

Uruemu Adejinmi said companies were making enough money and should use some of it to protect its users. Picture: Joe Akude

“There should be some responsibility placed on these providers — they’re certainly making a lot of money so they should invest in protecting the people who are spending their money on their websites as well.”

Ms McManus said that she worried about the issue of succession — wondering if future politicians will be put off from a career in politics due to the prevalence of online abuse.

Ms O’Donovan detailed the exhaustive measures she had to go through in order to have defamatory, “misogynistic” and “very disgusting” videos of her removed from YouTube. She first put in a privacy complaint but was told to take the issue up directly with the person abusing her, something she did not feel at all safe doing. 

Secondly she made a copyright complaint — which was refused. At this point she had a solicitor make a complaint based on defamation — this resulted in the videos being blocked in Ireland, but not in any other jurisdiction.

“The lack of moderation, the lack of safety when you go and say: ‘Look I am being harassed, I am being abused, I am being defamed’ and someone going: ‘Oh well yeah, just take that up directly with the person abusing you,’ is insane.

“They [social media companies] have to be called out and they have to step up and start protecting women online,” she said.

Ms O’Donovan also said that media companies, both regional and national newspapers and radio stations, need to moderate their comments section below posts of headlines and stories.

Grace McManus, Wicklow’s first openly gay councillor, thinks the volume of online abuse will put other people off working in politics.

Margaret Martin, former director of Women’s Aid and who moderated the discussion said the whole issue of online abuse was “affecting women across the board and in all kinds of relationships”.

Aside from the regulation of social media companies and sanctions by way of legislating hate crime, Ms  McManus said men needed to be involved in the conversation around abuse.

“I think we need to talk to our men and if we are talking about gendered abuse we need to talk to them consistently about what that feels like for us. I think they want to know, I think they care,” said Ms McManus.