{"id":278780,"date":"2026-02-03T16:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278780\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:34:09","slug":"irish-regulators-censored-social-media-coverage-of-elections-us-congress-panel-claims-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278780\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish regulators \u2018censored\u2019 social media coverage of elections, US Congress panel claims \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish and EU<\/a> regulators aggressively \u201ccensored\u201d social media coverage of Ireland\u2019s 2024 general election and the recent presidential election<\/a>, a panel of US politicians has claimed in a report.<\/p>\n

The report by the staff on the judiciary committee of the Republican-controlled US Congress alleges \u201charassment\u201d against tech groups to undermine conservative and populist parties.<\/p>\n

It claims the European Commission<\/a> and Irish media regulators in Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n<\/a> worked with \u201cbiased fact-checkers\u201d and \u201cleft-wing\u201d non-governmental organisations before the last two Irish elections.<\/p>\n

The document was published on Tuesday in a week when Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee is in Washington for political meetings.<\/p>\n

It comes against the backdrop of antagonism between US president Donald Trump and the EU powers over the impact of European regulation on American business. <\/p>\n

As such, the report is likely to be seen by Irish and EU officials as part of a backlash in Washington against EU attempts to rein in social media in the areas of data protection and content regulation.<\/p>\n

The US panel framed the alleged election interference in Ireland as part of a what it described as European-wide pattern led for a decade by the commission, the EU\u2019s executive branch.<\/p>\n

It claimed the commission has worked \u201cto censor true information and political speech\u201d on contentious topics such as the Covid-19 pandemic, mass migration and transgender issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 10 years, the European Commission has established sufficient control of global online speech to comprehensively suppress narratives that threaten the European Commission\u2019s power,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

Citing what it said were \u201cnon-public documents\u201d in relation to Ireland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, France, Moldova and Romania, the US report went on to claim the commission censored tech platforms ahead of national elections \u201cin order to disadvantage conservative or populist political parties\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dublin is the main European hub for tech giants such as Facebook owner Meta, Google, Microsoft, TikTok and X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n

Noting the primacy of such operations in Ireland, the US panel said the outcome of Irish elections was \u201cparticularly important to the European Commission\u2019s tech agenda\u201d. <\/p>\n

Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n was one of the most powerful regulators in the world for the same reason, the panel said, citing laws known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) that regulate online speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the commission and the Irish regulator engaged with platforms ahead of Ireland\u2019s 2024 parliamentary elections and 2025 presidential election, and Irish officials have noted how they \u2018work closely with the commission in the enforcement of the DSA\u2019,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo weeks before the 2024 election, Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n hosted a \u2018DSA election roundtable\u2019 alongside commission regulators,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAhead of the meeting, the Irish regulator sent platforms a list of questions they should be prepared to answer, including several about platforms\u2019 DSA risk assessment, co-operation with left-wing NGOs and biased fact-checkers, and platforms\u2019 censorship \u2018processes [and] procedures.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The US report said Irish regulators followed up and asked Meta additional questions about media literacy initiatives and noted that such initiatives were listed as a best practice under \u201cthe not-so-voluntary\u201d DSA election guidelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of these interactions created additional censorship pressure on platforms. Platforms, after a decade of the European Commission\u2019s harassment, knew what it wanted \u2013 more censorship,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew that the European Commission and the Irish media regulator would ask about their censorship measures during these pre-election meetings. And they knew that the European Commission could \u2013 and would \u2013 retaliate against them if they failed to take adequate censorship measures from the perspective of the commission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US panel noted another DSA election roundtable before the presidential election last October.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the meeting, the European Commission warned platforms that the DSA election guidelines required \u2018measures to be taken\u2019 ahead of the election, including \u2018reinforcing internal processes\u2019 regarding content moderation,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Big thinking needed as the golden age of Irish tech nears its endOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the roundtable portion of the event, regulators asked platforms specifically \u2018what measures [they had] put in place\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cMeta responded that it had updated its \u2018election risk assessment\u2019 and \u2018mitigations\u2019, meaning that it put in place additional censorship steps \u2013 though it did not specify exactly what steps those were.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle emphasised its use of AI tools to detect misinformation, while Microsoft stated that it removed misinformation that violated its policies and \u2018deranked\u2019 (ie, reduce the content\u2019s visibility) it if the content did not violate its policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Coimisi\u00fan Toghch\u00e1in, the Irish electoral regulator, had no comment on the US report. Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n and the European Commission were approached for comment, as was the Department of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish and EU regulators aggressively \u201ccensored\u201d social media coverage of Ireland\u2019s 2024 general election and the recent presidential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3584,5148,42,1556,43,16621,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-278780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-coimisiun-na-mean","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-helen-mcentee","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-republican-party","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}