Simon Harris has had enough; where will that energy take us?

The Taoiseach is coming for Silicon Valley; can we use that energy to lead the next wave of digital policy, or will we descend into an exhausting and pointless beef?

What happened: Escalating threats

Simon Harris has watched intimidation against his family escalate, with masked men arrested outside his family home, and online death threats. These are being investigated by Gardai, including two last weekend made on Instagram.

He has not wanted to comment on his family's security directly, issuing a statement focusing on those doing the intimidation, saying that "The laws of the land apply to people online just as much as offline".

(He is not the only one facing harassment, I recently wrote in The Irish Times about both the threats against the life of Mary-Lou McDonald and about the abuse that Eamon Ryan discussed as he stood down as party leader.)

What Simon Said: no more dining out

The Taoiseach has not been so coy about the social media companies, and the people who run them. This week he called platforms the "Wild West", and said that CEOs were "dining out" on the idea that Ireland helped them avoid regulatory enforcement.

He spoke with more emotion that I am used to hearing Irish political leaders talk about tech company execs and their links to online harms - here is one quote (from great reporting by The Journal):

“Elon Musk is a citizen of wherever in the world and that’s fine. My concern isn’t that Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, whatever their name is. My concern is the protection, safety and well being of people in this country, of the European Union, of which we’re a member of, the young people whose parents have pangs of anxiety about the impact that online and social media has on their children’s well being" Taoiseach Simon Harris

What it means: taking it to the top

Two things stood out to me in this further quote from Harris:

"These social media companies aren’t actually faceless” Taoiseach Simon Harris

The first is that he framed the issue as one of corporate responsibility, rather than the frustrating tendency of looking at "social media" as if it were some sort of exogenous, independent social phenomenon.

The other is that he is really making this personal, about the leadership. He talked about new regulation - the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act - which will in theory allow for fines in the millions of dollars against the Directors of tech companies.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin also went personal this week, in the context of “mindless ill-informed” online discussion of migration. He was really rather blunt, saying “I think Elon Musk and I think X is problematic".

What now: step up or fall out

Two things remain to be seen.

Games or Anti-Monopoly?

Will this spat escalate into a full blown beef between the Government and Elon Musk? Musk is already in a childish fight with the UK Prime Minister over the abject failure of his company - and his own role - in the racist and Islamophobic UK riots.

Honestly, that sounds exhausting, pointless, and if we are to get real politik for a moment, costly economically. We still have a highly FDI dependent economy, and government / business spats and the politicisation of business personalities will not set the tone we need.

I would much rather see our Taoiseach take a step back and look at the Musk situation as a problem of concentration of power in the hands of a few firms, and to take account of the the risks that this poses to Irish, EU and Global communications and information access, no matter who is in charge. I would love to see him bring in the question of competition policy, and Europe's new Digital Markets Act, into his framing of the issue.

An opportunity to be best in class?

And secondly, will this translate into Irish regulators stepping up when it comes to enforcing European regulations? Simon Harris has used fighting words in this regard, saying that the CEOs "dining out" on our reputation are mistaken. The Journal reported that he is planning to "convene a meeting of all relevant state agencies, stakeholders, and others to see what more Ireland can do both as a country on our own but also through the European Union." And just yesterday, Coimisiún na Meán released a statement saying that it was looking into whether Meta had complied with Irish regulations in dealing with the Simon Harris threats, which reportedly stayed up for days once flagged.

We can build on this momentum. There is a window of opportunity here for Ireland to turn around this reputation that CEOs may dine out on, but which really hurts us in Brussels and elsewhere. Regulatory enforcement doesn't have to be a race to the bottom - in fact the success of our FDI model in pharmaceuticals and other industries have come from us being best in class.

The tech industry is changing, Europe is moving to be more aggressive on anti-trust and on supporting domestic industry. If our national business model is to survive for the next 10-20 years, we need start with looking at our role in EU tech policy enforcement.