Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Gerard P. Craughwell (IND), Labour Panel

I thank the Minister. That was a fairly comprehensive series of replies. I want to talk about the social media providers or the Internet provider. The Minister says they are merely providing a service. If I put up a tweet or post that says "Joe Bloggs is corrupt and anything he ever earned was earned through corrupt means", then Joe Bloggs may have a case of defamation against me if he can identify me. The Minister says that the Internet service provider has no liability here. They use algorithms. It strikes me that the law around the liability that an Internet service provider may or may not have is somewhat dated now. Internet service providers use algorithms to further a topical issue. Someone with a very well-known name might be named on a social media platform. Interest drives the Internet service provider to use an algorithm to push that further and further. I am in a bit of a corner here with two eminent lawyers in the room who understand these things much better than I do, but is it not the case that once the algorithm kicks in the Internet service provider is now publishing the defamation without any knowledge other than what was posted by the original person? I have watched with interest since I moved off Twitter how some of the stuff that was said about me has stopped because I am not there to respond any more. There is no interest anymore. It is gone; it is finished. Yet, if you look, there is now a @GCraughwell on Twitter and it is not me. Has the Internet service provider not got a legal obligation to ensure the person using my name is actually me? What if this person who is using my name defames someone? This goes back to the Minister’s last point - the account may hold my name but I am not publishing it. Members of this House and the Dáil frequently use members of staff to keep their social media up to date. Does that mean they are immediately immune in regard to whatever has been said in their name? I am a little confused on it. I think we are letting off the people with the serious money to meet defamation cases and allowing the lunatics, if you want to call them that, or those who want to say defamatory things who do not have the means to compensate those they defame. It seems I am missing a trick somewhere. I would be interested in the Minister’s views on that.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11