It could soon be a criminal offence to spread ‘fake news’ in Ireland.
A new bill is to be proposed by Fianna Fáil in the Dáil this week, after the party warned that Ireland may soon find itself being hit by a similar online epidemic that allegedly influenced the US Presidential elections back in November 2016.
Written by James Lawless, the party’s Kildare-North TD, the proposed bill states that the act of knowingly using bots to influence political events via social media could carry a maximum prison sentence of five years or a €10,000 fine.
The main targets are the users of software capable of creating more than 25 social media accounts on any website, social network or search engine that attracts over 10,000 unique visitors per month.
The bill has also proposed greater transparency when it comes to political advertising online by demanding all such ads must explicitly state an intended purpose and its target audience.
Lawless has said, “We should not be naïve in thinking Ireland will not be affected by the new form of hybrid information warfare which is underway on social media” while also noting that such had already been the case in both Britain and the United States.
“Evidence suggests that an army of fake social media accounts is being amassed to disrupt the democratic process in the future, with journalists and prominent public figures highlighting an upsurge in the number of dubious accounts following them on social media platforms.”
The threat of fake news influencing political proceedings was first raised by Fianna Fáil in early 2017, after the TD Brendan Smith urged the Minister for Communications to engage with social media companies, such as Facebook, who have their headquarters in Dublin.
“Many of the world’s most prominent social media companies have their European Headquarters in Dublin so the Government has a responsibility to engage with them to ensure, insofar as is possible, that all efforts are being made to clamp down on the publication of fake news on these platforms.”
