Restrain the bad stuff on ‘X’ – don’t ban it

Here are some of the posts I’ve shared, or followed, on the social media platform ‘X’ over the last few days (at the time of writing).

A wonderful ballet performance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a pianist playing Tchaikovsky; a posting about Ireland being No. 1 among the “most educated countries” in the world; a close-up video of cooking a Spanish omelette; an inspiring quote from Goethe; a thrilling ice-skating performance by the French champion Suraya Bonaly; general commentary on the Mercosur beef trade deal; a lot of endearing pictures of cats and adorable ones of new-born babies; and, as it unfolded, day by tragic day, the situation in Iran.

‘X’ is owned by billionaire Elon Musk and there’s been much criticism claiming that the quality has deteriorated since he acquired the platform, formerly Twitter.  Undoubtedly, you can find aggression, verbal abuse, nastiness of various kinds, and, as in so much else of the Internet, routes to pornography. Elon Musk has, deplorably, allowed users to ‘undress’ images of women, and even children, via Grok, the artificial intelligence bot he also controls.

Authorities

For this reason, the British authorities are considering banning ‘X’, and it’s been suggested such a move might be followed in Ireland. Patrick O’Donovan, Arts and Media Minister, has publicly quit ‘X’ in a symbolic gesture of repelling it, advocating that others should do the same.

Yet other social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook also facilitate some horrible material –  some have been accused of being channels for paedophile rings.

Almost anything human beings invent can be used for bad as well as for good.  Money can be helpful or corrupting. Science can be enlightened or perverse – think of how the Nazis perverted both science and medicine. Alcohol can cheer and bring cordiality – and also destroy lives and morals. Motor cars can enhance the quality of life, but also kill, and impact the whole environmental and community landscape.

A platform like ‘X’ can contain bad and odious material, but it can also be a valuable source of information, an uplifting channel of culture, and a means of free expression not always available elsewhere.

Governments should use the law to curb the bad stuff, like threats of violence or porn; but don’t shut down an outlet which can also be used for good purposes.

As an aside, it bemuses me to remember how Mary Whitehouse was widely excoriated for warning that pornography would become a global industry, exploiting younger people especially – since young people have the physical beauty which makes them vulnerable.

Hostility

Her warnings met with such hostility that the Director-General of the BBC had a dartboard made of an image of Mrs Whitehouse’s face, so he could throw pointed darts at her.

Yet so many of her predictions about the pornification of the culture came true. And such norms have seeped into so many outlets.

The British government’s Office of Communication (Ofcom) is set to research whether ‘X’ has broken the law and will fine Mr Musk mightily if it has. That’s a better approach than outright bans: regulate and restrain, where there is harm to the public interest, or sexual exploitation.

But note that ‘X’ can still communicate the useful, the informative and the entertaining – and provides a platform too, for many people who might otherwise be voiceless.

(@MaryKenny4 is my X tag.)

Domestic servants

When the 1926 Census of the Irish Free State is made available on-line on April 18, it will show that 7% of the population were “domestic servants”.

I’m surprised it’s not higher. It would have been hard labour indeed to run a household back in the day without some domestic assistance. Before household technology became available, housework started at dawn with lighting the fires, and continued relentlessly all day, for most women. Even in the 1940s and 50s, quite modest households had a maid; a cheerful lass from Carlow, Josie, was our daily help and she was paid 18 shillings and 6 pence (all found) weekly. She noted that her friend, in a more affluent household, got 19 shillings.

Let us not forget that one of the greatest agencies of women’s liberation was – the washing machine. And the vacuum cleaner. And the refrigerator…

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On Greenland, Irish foreign policy may need to deploy all its most diplomatic skills.

As a fellow EU member, we must support Denmark. But the indigenous Greenlanders claim independence from Denmark, just as Ireland did from Britain; moreover, the Danes weren’t always nice to the Inuit people.

A further complication is that scholars claim the Vikings had Greenland before the Inuit – Scandinavian church ruins exist from the 1400s, indicating Christianised Vikings were the first inhabitants.

The 56,000 Greenlanders (of whom 300 are Catholic) don’t want to be Americans, but they don’t want to be controlled by Denmark, or the EU, either.