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MEDIA MINISTER PATRICK O’Donovan has fumed that remarks he made last week in relation to the Grok ‘undressing’ scandal were “taken out of context”.
O’Donovan, who is minister for media and communications, said last week that it is “not necessarily the app” that’s making child sexual abuse images.
“It’s people using the app that’s making the images,” he told Virgin Media News.
In the same media interaction, the minister said: “in the first instance, there is individual responsibility, yes. There is responsibility for Grok, yes, there is responsibility for the regulator, and there’s responsibility for the State.”
The following day, in an interview on his local radio station, Limerick95, O’Donovan said he had deleted his X account in response to the scandal, saying that he no longer felt comfortable on the platform.
In a tense exchange with reporters today at the National Concert Hall, the minister refused to apportion any blame to Elon Musk’s X for the generation of child sexual abuse images.
Asked explicitly today if he would attribute some responsibility to X, the Minister said:
“What I made very clear is Comisiún na Meán are the regulator here, there is also An Garda Síochána. It is a matter for Comisiún na Meán to investigate all and every complaint with regard to any platform, as it is also a role for the European Commission.
“And there’s two regulators in this context, Comisiún na Meán and the European Commission and… given that I’m the Minister with responsibility for Comisiún na Meán, it would be highly inappropriate of me to tell Comisiún na Meán what to do, because I’m sure journalists like yourself would probably say that I’m overstepping my role.”
Elsewhere, the Labour Party today called for X to be banned entirely in Ireland.
Speaking on the plinth at Leinster House this morning, Labour Senator Laura Harmon said:
“We’re talking about child abuse here, child abuse imagery.
“If there was a factory created down the road this morning that was producing these kind of images, it would be shut down immediately.
“And for that reason, I do believe that we need to consider, the option needs to be on the table, in terms of banning X in Ireland.”
Asked if she thought the Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan is afraid to take X on, the senator said she thinks the Government does not know how to deal with this issue.
“I don’t think they’ve thought about this deeply enough,” she said.
This sentiment was echoed by Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan who, when asked about the Minister’s position, said: “I don’t know what the story is with him, to be honest with you.”
Asked this afternoon if the Government would consider banning X, Minister O’Donovan said that would be an issue that would need to be discussed at EU level.
“I’ve already said that the second half of the year, during Ireland’s Presidency of the Council [of the EU], will be devoted to protection of the child online.
“And it’s a bit strange that a lot of people that were criticising me last week with regard to some of my comments, albeit taken out of context, were the same people that were also criticising the fact that we were looking to bring in age verification.”
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