Not good enough that threat against Harris was not taken down for two days, says McEntee

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said that it was “not good enough” that “something clearly a threat” was not taken down for two days from a social media platform.

Ms McEntee told Newstalk Breakfast that a threat, whether it was online or in person, was illegal and should have been taken down immediately.

The threat against Taoiseach Simon Harris and his wife and children, posted on Instagram, had been “absolutely appalling”, she said.

“The fact that this is online is no different to if someone had done it in person, in front of them, in a way that maybe we've been more used to in the past. It is absolutely appalling that anybody would think that they could threaten any person online.”

Ms McEntee said that social media companies had a role to play in making sure that such content was removed as quickly as possible especially in cases where the content was clearly illegal.

There was ongoing engagement between the Gardai and social media companies, she said and the new online safety commissioner Coimisiún na Meán would also be involved and would have the “teeth” to ensure that social media companies were forced to comply to act immediately.

Later on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Ms McEntee said that the era of self regulation for social media companies was over.

“We have now an online safety commissioner, one of the few countries to actually have an online safety commissioner. The sole focus and role would be to make sure that social media companies ,where there was harmful content, but also with illegal content, that it's taken down, that social media companies play their part and where they don't, that there are serious penalties imposed.”

Coimisiún na Meán was working on a code of practice which should shortly be finalised and would be implemented by the end of the year.

“This means that where social media companies are not compliant, where they're not engaging, very hefty and very serious fines can and will be applied. But it is important to say that irrespective of that and before those codes are finalised, gardai do work closely with social media companies. But I do think that we need to do more, and I do think that social media companies need to do more.”