This Is Just To Say
I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update
and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize
Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying
Dr Eileen Culloty
How do we balance ministerial accountability with the essential autonomy of our news media?
In a recent opinion piece for @irishtimes.com, DCU’s Dr Eileen Culloty examines the recent controversy surrounding Minister Patrick O’Donovan’s comments on RTÉ and media "balance."
Read: launch.dcu.ie/4tkXDsX
Bid to take down fake videos and images of garda response to fuel protests False viral information, much of it being generated abroad, is on a scale ‘never seen before’ in Ireland
Meanwhile, Aidan O’Brien, an analyst at the European Digital Media Observatory Ireland at Dublin City University (DCU), has been monitoring how the far-right in Ireland and abroad reacted to the fuel blockades. He said a “disinformation economy” went into full swing during last week’s protests. He uncovered conspiracy theories about the energy crisis and talk of “the great shutdown”, which were already in heavy circulation on Irish social media by the middle of March. “When the protests erupted, Irish right-wing social media influencers went into overdrive posting video content. Many of these influencers benefit from features introduced on the platforms, like algorithm promotion, and have monetised their accounts,” he explained. “There is now a disinformation economy. Influencers know the most dramatic footage, alongside the most sensational framing, will go viral, generating income. They aren’t just promoting this footage and their narratives because it suits their agenda, they’re making money doing so.” After that international far-right influencers pounced on the content, he said. “Nearly immediately, and often within minutes of the initial videos being posted, it was downloaded and repackaged by influencers outside Ireland. “It happened so quickly that you might assume these people are heavily immersed in the situation, but they’re chasing the content, and the story, often repackaging footage with false claims that the protest was about migration. “This happens because over the last five years our disinformation ecology has become exponentially complex and is fully integrated with the international far-right disinformation ecosystem.” Ireland has now become a “major focus of attention” for the international hard-right, he said. Canadian far-right influencer Ezra Levant travelled to Ireland last week as did Kevin Posobiec, whose brother Jack is an American far-right political activist and social media personality. Both filmed content while here. The fact both men…
![The fact both men were willing to “jump on a plane” said a lot, added Mr O’Brien.
“The foreign attention and amplification of these protests are concerning…Our Government needs to start demanding real accountability and action from these [social media] companies…
“If the Minister [for Communications Patrick O’Donovan] is concerned about ‘lopsided coverage’ of the protests, he shouldn’t be worried about the radio but look at social media.”
On Friday, Minister O’Donovan admitted he made a “hames” of his call for a “review” into broadcast media coverage of fuel protests. He said, “in hindsight”, he should not have suggested that the media regulator — Coimisiún na Meán — should “review” both local and national broadcast coverage of the fuel protests.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:soimfvdqqoieabdpxtlt3mxz/bafkreifhphtz5fx6kn2dmopshfztyb7nsgqf56e5nyhzi3znv2glxhldha)
The fact both men were willing to “jump on a plane” said a lot, added Mr O’Brien. “The foreign attention and amplification of these protests are concerning…Our Government needs to start demanding real accountability and action from these [social media] companies… “If the Minister [for Communications Patrick O’Donovan] is concerned about ‘lopsided coverage’ of the protests, he shouldn’t be worried about the radio but look at social media.” On Friday, Minister O’Donovan admitted he made a “hames” of his call for a “review” into broadcast media coverage of fuel protests. He said, “in hindsight”, he should not have suggested that the media regulator — Coimisiún na Meán — should “review” both local and national broadcast coverage of the fuel protests.
I spoke to the Sindo about the unprecedented scale of disinformation we witnessed during the fuel protests & the disinformation economy. It's not enough to get this content removed post-hoc; we need to hold the platforms accountable for promoting disinformation & hate speech.
archive.ph/AOVHC
This is a genuinely mindblowing combination. 1) Deliberately false information, 2) promoted in schools, 3) using public money, 4) in the service of private profits, 5) at the cost of our collapsing ecosystem.
No mention of any research to back this up. It is also surely possible that teachers who continue to foster critical and creative thinking and communication skills will in fact be the most valuable? #speirgorm
We can use this crisis for good.
🚲 Roll out temporary cycle lanes
🚋 Make public transport free for a time
⚽ Car free days in cities
🚘 30 km/h speed limit in urban areas
We do not have to double down on fossil fuels. We can choose a different path.
My piece in the Journal this week.
That's the next step, were going to experimentally test them...
Thanks to @fujomedia.bsky.social coauthors Lorin Sweeney @robraonain.bsky.social Fionna Saintraint and Rabhya Mehrotra
Our open dataset provides reusable data and methods for researchers working on climate communication, polarisation, rhetoric, and other contested public debates. Have a look here 👉 shorturl.at/UgHpV
We let patterns emerge inductively from the data rather than imposing categories using a new semantic chunking and unsupervised analysis pipeline on a large open-access climate discourse dataset.
Skeptic discourse,was more likely to frame climate action as elite-driven, unjust, or unworkable, and to do so through anti-elite rhetoric and emotions such as anger and disgust.
Advocate discourse was more likely to frame climate change as an urgent collective problem that demands practical solutions, and to communicate that urgency through fear and sadness.
Overall climate advocacy and climate skepticism are not simply offering different positions on the same issues. They are organizing those issues through fundamentally different rhetorical and emotional logics.
Advocates lead with pragmatic solutions and crisis language. Skeptics rely on anti-elite rhetoric, framing climate action as elite-imposed, and use anger/disgust appeals. Communicating about climate isn't just about facts: it's about framing and emotional appeals.
How do different climate camps persuade their audiences when you stop forcing the data into predefined categories? Our paper, Reading the Climate Room, just published in Nature Scientific Reports, reveals stark differences in how advocates and skeptics communicate. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Largely empty, constantly windy island battered by Atlantic waves can only think of importing famously contested and expensive goo as means of generating power, heating homes
Man, I had a long layover in Dublin this weekend; who knew?
The EU is pushing ahead with AI Act changes that weaken protections for high-risk systems and leave no meaningful path to redress, even as evidence of harm mounts, write CDT Europe’s Laura Lazaro Cabrera and Magdalena Maier.
18 years in the making.
"It is brilliant - the best thing I'll do in my working life," says Neil Constable, who led the project for Natural England.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Fun evening Peter’s a great speaker. Recommend catching him if you can in London this evening or Brussels on Wednesday .
If we made the green energy transition this war would be unthinkable and these authoritarians wouldn’t be in power — not in the US, not in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia, not in Russia. Hydrocarbons are killing our freedom and just plain killing us.
🇺🇸 Statue of Trump and Epstein in 'Titanic' pose appears on DC National Mall
A statue depicting US President Donald Trump and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as Jack and Rose in a "Titanic" scene is on display on the National Mall near the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
European (and NATO)
leaders must stop with the pious fraud and provide unequivocal support for Sánchez’s truth-telling
The British people appear ahead of their politicians. Watched this last night. Really interesting that the vast majority of the public were anti war and pro Monbiot. Only a handful literally supported the Tory/ Telegraph speakers on pro war stance.
Tax exiles stuck in London desperately trying to get *back* to Dubai to avoid becoming tax resident in the UK? Just great stuff. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?
