From top: Sinn Féin’s chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Brian Stanley TD; Solicitor Simon McGarr
This morning/afternoon.
Further to controversy caused by tweets from a Sinn Féin TD celebrating a 1979 IRA attack and poking fun at Tanaiste Leo Varadkar’s sexuality…
…Solicitor Simon McGarr writes:
Twitter is a reflection of real life- just as a golf clubhouse, a GAA clubhouse and a nightclub are each different reflections of real life. They give expression to an aspect of public opinion. But Twitter has also become a broadcast system for official actors.
Politicians are used to broadcast media- that’s what most of them have trained to use for decades.
But a broadcast medium that is also an archive of all the dumb things we’ve ever said in passing and a two-way communications system? As [Sinn Féin TD and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee] Brian Stanley realised as he deleted his account, “we’re not as good at it.”
Meanwhile, the Government moves forward on laws to regulate citizen’s use of the internet and creating a crime of making an internet post that “causes alarm or distress to the other person”.
This points to a crunch happening from the middle of next year, when people who are self-confessedly bad at understanding and using the communication elements of social media will try to draw up rules that will restrict a good chunk of the world’s usage of it.
Ireland’s biggest Twitter-storm is yet to land.’ [More at link below]
The Gist: Storms in a Tweetcup (Simon McGarr)
Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill (Gov.ie)
the gov. have identified where they come unstuck. and that is free media. where they don’t control the narrative. whenver they get exposed for foul play, its on social media. now they want to control that. under the guise of protecting people, but in practice it will be to shut down gov. dissenters. for all the “sinn fein would turn ireland into north korea” talk that they do, this is by far the closest action to a dictatorship as we will have seen. this is huge. they want to quell free speech. is this the “change” that was promised thruout the election? was it fupp. “change” was what the public said we wanted. then it becamse a buzz word, used by FF and FG. it was never going to be anything more for them. we need to get this lot out as fast as possible. every week that this gov. rumbles on, ireland is further damaged.
And the shinner bots are out again. Anything to do with the Guards, RTE, the Indo, FG/FF/G etc., they are out in force. The irony it was you own pig ignorant TD that caused this. Tell us about the Storey funeral? Queen or the republic?
looking to play tit for tat is a dangerous game for someone who supports FG. Literally a new scandal or fupp up EVERY week.
I agree, Doc. Self serving , worst government ever.
they really are. and that’s some going. considering we had a gov. that tanked the entire country. they’ve managed to top them.
Well it’s not the worst government really though is it? The worst was the Fianna Faíl/Green and PD’s. Ahern, Cowen,Gormley,Harney et al. They damaged our country in deep ways that will never be reversed.
This one isn’t great either and I will vote them out at the next opportunity but it’s worth remembering a common denominator in both governments are the Green Party.
I hope, If Sinn Feín try to form a government after the next election, they don’t facilitate the Greens and allow them anywhere near power.
I think SF in power and unhindered next time out is a firm possibility Andrew
and I’m not sure how I feel about that
they’re clearly slowly but surely getting their act together however I think it will take another generation or two for their old guard to die off and for them to be truly modernised and distant from that hum of sectarian gobshytery that hasn’t fully dissipated yet…and at the end of the day they have one large goal that I’m not (nor my kids) interested in paying for
so as a voter at GE time to some degree it can feel a bit like “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” scenario….
+ FFG? over my dead body, dirty greasy till operators, no no no
+ G? amateur nice-to-have plonkers, strategic vote yes
+ LAB? I’ll never forgive or trust them, broke my heart, but strategic vote yes
+ SF? per above, I’d like an educated competent party of O’Broin’s + O’Doherty’s but still too much background historical noise and ideology (and I don’t need Varadker or Mehole to tell me that with their disingenuous frightened self-serving sniping)
+ SocD? if only they could build and be numbers relevant, yes
+ Indos? luck of the draw, in my case there are 2 decent yesses
:(
say it and stand over it or shut the tooty-pants up.