LAST UPDATE | 21 Jan

GRÁINNE SEOIGE HAS told TDs and Senators that laws do not currently protect victims of image-based sexual abuse. 

The broadcaster is appearing before the Oireachtas Media Committee to discuss online safety and the regulation of online platforms. 

It comes after she spoke out last week about the devastating impact the sharing of fake sexual images had on her during the 2024 general election.

During the election campaign, Seoige, who was a candidate for Fianna Fáil, had a fake sexual image of her circulated on WhatsApp. 

The existence of the image was brought to her attention by people she knew, and gardaí were alerted.

“It was the most shocking thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, and it took a long time to really process it,” Seoige told RTÉ’s Sarah McInerney last week. 

In her opening statement to the Oireachtas Media Committee today, Seoige told TDs and Senators that she is speaking to them “as a victim who is angry about what was done to me and about the impact it had on those closest to me”.

I am a victim who wants action, not soundbites.

The broadcaster said that since speaking out last week, she has received hundreds of messages, some from parents of teenagers and women who have had the same experience as her. 

She said that, like her, they hit dead ends, despite doing everything they were supposed to do by reporting it to the gardaí and to the relevant social media platform. 

“Repeatedly they hit dead ends and were told by An Garda Síochana that they did not have sufficient powers to identify perpetrators or to compel others to identify perpetrators – which was also the situation in my case,” Seoige said. 

“This cannot be allowed to continue. It is simply too serious, and we must bring an end to it,” she said, adding that she now feels obliged to ensure that “those parents, those young girls and those women who also reached out to me have their voices heard”.

Seoige said that even though the AI-generated images of her were shared hundreds, if not thousands, of times, “the law as it stands and certainly Meta place the burden on the victim to identify every individual in the chain of dissemination”. 

“Privacy and encryption cannot be allowed trump criminal behaviour,” she said, adding that legislators need to tackle both the creation of such images on sites such as Grok, and the dissemination on sites like WhatsApp.

She acknowledged that representatives from Meta and An Garda Síochána are due to appear before the committee. Based on her experience, she said “neither can credibly claim that current legislation is fit for purpose”.

“If they do, I ask that you cite my experience,” she said. 

Seoige concluded: “Ireland has faced many abuse scandals where systemic failure by authorities was later acknowledged. This will be the abuse scandal of the 21st Century if we do not act now: legislate urgently, be prepared to legislate again as this technology evolves, and ensure that all relevant regulators are empowered and ready to act.

‘Disappointed’ by lack of action

Social Democrats TD Sinead Gibney said that since Seoige spoke on Prime Time last week, no “tangible action” has been taken against Grok and asked the broadcaster how she felt about it. 

“Of course I’m disappointed,” she said.

Seoige described it as “one of the major challenges of our age” and likened the legal situation as the crime being “in a Formula One car and we’re chasing after it on a tricycle.

Gibney also asked Seoige about the “entitlement” that people seem to have when they use images of women and girls in this way.

Seoige said we are living in a culture that sees children being exposed to explicit sexual material by algorithms, especially young boys. 

“Porn becomes a primary teacher and it shapes expectations about power and consent and women’s bodies long before they mature to the point where they’re entering into a relationship with an actual human girl,” she said. 

It teaches not intimacy or respect, but entitlement and performance and disposability. Women presented as objects for consumption, humiliation and control.

She said the boys are receiving images so often that “the leap from viewing to sharing, from private to public harm becomes really small”.

“Now with this new technology, you can make it yourself. You don’t even have to be good on the computer. You can create an image like this in seconds and send it at scale, causing incredible damage.”

Fianna Fáil TD Peter Chap Cleere said what Seoige had outlined in her opening statement as “a father’s worst nightmare”.

“As a father of young daughters myself, this fills me with absolute rage, that the only thing X can give is a yawn and a shrug to online exploitation. That is not good enough.

“Women have it hard enough, but particularly women who stand for public office,” he said, adding that for X to supply the tools to “these creeps” is “disgraceful and morally reprehensible”. 

‘There is a cultural problem here’

He asked Seoige about the patterns she has seen about how the harm happens in daily life. 

Seoige said the stories she has heard in the last week “would make you cry”, saying that the response to the problem by the tech platforms is a culture “that has confronted women for a very long time”.

She said it is reflected in the reporting of the matter, criticising the use of the term “nudification, like it’s something cheeky and playful” and saying it is a “minimisation of the effects on these young girls and women”.

“There’s a cultural problem here, and people who are running these major platforms are giving voice to this cultural problem.”

“There’s real damage being done here,” she said. “We just need to take it seriously and you’re the perfect people to do it.”

Fianna Fáil’s Malcolm Byrne said he sees the matter as a threat to democracy. 

“I worry about this because often when I’m talking to really capable young people who are considering putting their name forward for election, the biggest fear they now have is around online abuse,” he said, before asking Seoige about her experience. 

Seoige said no one can say that this will not deter women from running for public office. 

I can genuinely tell you if any woman came to me and said ‘Should I go forward?’, I would say ‘If i were you, no. Don’t do it. What you will be put through is not worth it’.

Seoige also criticised the justification that she also sees when people say those who run for office “put themselves out there” for online abuse.

“When you stand forward… you’re not putting yourself up for abuse. You’re putting yourself up for public service. You’re putting yourself up to help your community,” she said. 

“There’s a weird distortion that has happened where it just seems like becoming a politician or engaging in public office is tantamount to becoming a criminal,” she continued.

“That is allowed to percolate through discussions online, discussions in the media, you are branded with ‘you’re not being a good person anymore’. But then add in being a woman and you raise the game again. Then you add in what that woman looks like and you’re into whole new territory.”

With reporting from Jane Moore