From top: Marine Le Pen; Jerome Riviera, Paddy Cosgrave

Email from Luan McKenna, of the Web Summit, to Mr Riviera, spokesperson for Marine Le Pen’s party (click to enlarge)

Yesterday, The international spokesman for Marine Le Pen’s French far-right party National Rally, Jerome Riviera, tweeted an email he received from Luan McKenna, of the Web Summit, on July 18, 2018.

It was a follow-up to an email Mr McKenna had sent two days previously in which he outlined the Web Summit’s plans for Ms Le Pen to attend the event in Lisbon, Portugal, later this year.

On July 18, Mr McKenna essentially resent his initial email which included the line:

“You mentioned that Marine would be interested in talking about ‘fake news’ and the responsibility tech companies have in stopping the spread of it. This is a very important topic for me and I would love to have Marine speak about this.

“In terms of format, I mentioned on the phone that I would like to have Marine do two items. One would be a keynote address and the other would be a panel discussion. I would obviously check with you to make sure Marine was happy with any other panelists we suggest.”

After it was reported earlier this week that Ms Le Pen was lined up to speak at the Web Summit, and the decision was heavily criticised, it’s co-founder Paddy Cosgrave initially posted a blog post defending his decision.

He wrote:

“Web Summit is a place where people should be prepared to have their opinions deeply challenged, and in turn to deeply challenge the opinions of others.”

Adding:

“…these speakers are not invited to deliver an uncontested address, but are instead invited to have their views thoroughly challenged and scrutinised by a professional journalist.

Moreover they sit on a panel, surrounded by authoritative and alternative voices who will openly contest the extreme viewpoints of these speakers. This has always been the case, and will be the case with Marine Le Pen.”

Anyone?

On Wednesday, Mr Cosgrave rescinded the initiated to Ms Le Pen.

Previously: Le Plonker

Meanwhile…

Morning #BKNT listeners!
After yesterday’s ill-informed shit sandwich, you might want to read this on free speech, Le Pen, and why “The Sound Of Music” should have been an hour longer so we could all learn something important. https://t.co/lWzH0CoxFN

— Philip O'Connor (@philipoconnor) August 17, 2018

OK, there is a big, big problem here with Web Summit and Le Pen (and no, bros, it’s not about “freeze peach”).
Either the organiser(s) is/are so dumb that they didn’t know in advance what the reaction would be (unlikely, but not impossible), or we’ve been played. Neither is good.

— Philip O’Connor (@philipoconnor) August 15, 2018

Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave, rebranded logo on twitter and tweet from journalist Philip O’Connor

Paddy Cosgrave has withdrawn his invitation for French far right politician Marine Le Pen to speak at his Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in November.

In a series of tweets, he explained having Ms Le Pen at the event would be “disrespectful” to “our host country”.

Last night, he wrote a blog post defending his decision to invite her, saying

“…the easy decision for Web Summit is to shirk robust debate with those who hold extreme views of this nature. The easy decision for Web Summit is to rescind Marine Le Pen’s invitation.

“But for now we have chosen not to because we believe banning or attempting to ignore these views, which have been fanned in our view by technology, does little to furthering understanding.”

This afternoon, he tweeted the following…

Nice work, brah.

Earlier: A Limerick A Day

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