OPINION: People posting pictures of online ‘suspects’ is a dangerous road for Ireland

There were two high-profile incidents this week that showed just how dangerous social media can be for all of us.

The first was very close to home with videos of a man allegedly making vile threats of violence against young children. This individual’s face was posted all over social media with ‘warnings’ issued about so-called sightings of him across the country. It was rampant. You couldn’t avoid it if you were on social media.

A number of politicians, including TDs and councillors, shared the images with similar ‘warnings,’ and while the threats made in the original video are beyond horrific, there is something just as sinister about these social media mobs - especially in the age of misinformation - where we so often hit the share button without thinking or questioning anything about a post's contents.

I’m not saying the image circulated was incorrect or misinformation - not for a second - I’ve seen the videos and the images spreading were screenshots from said video. But what if a picture circulating of a suspect or dangerous individual was the wrong person? What if you emerged from a shop or somewhere this suspect was supposedly ‘spotted’, someone snaps your picture mistakenly, and suddenly you’re in every Whatsapp group and social media newsfeed in the country? You’re a villain in the eyes of the social media world and there’s no amount of clarification that can change that.

Social media is a feeding frenzy; think a fish tank of piranhas you've dropped a pound of flesh in. Once it gets hold of that; a name, that tidbit of information someone heard from someone, somewhere, it devours it. There is no pause for questioning, it’s just spread and that’s it. If they’re wrong, and they often are, your life is ruined. It could lead to problems in your personal life, your job, you could be ‘tracked down’ and beaten on the street - but that’s the world we live in, and we all feed it by sharing this stuff. 

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Just look across the Irish Sea this week to the horrific incident during Liverpool’s Premier League title celebration parade. A car was driven into the crowd, injuring dozens of people, including children, and the online lynch mob was out instantly. I absorb the news, and the first place first-hand accounts emerge is social media; that’s also a reality. However, within an hour, I had seen three different images of ‘the driver’ and they were all spreading like wildfire. At least two of those, if not all three are, by simple deduction, completely false, and yet there they were on my newsfeed.

When you take incidents like this, and the one here at home this week in the context of the anger they rightly generate, as well as maybe some unscrupulous ‘social media personalities’ espousing certain political views, it does not take long to realise the danger they pose. We’ve never had more access to information, and as someone in journalism, that is something to be celebrated. But similarly, we’ve never had as much access to misinformation, often created to sow anger and fear for some sort of ideological gain. That is something to fear; it sends a chill down my spine.

We in the media are often asked why we don’t report certain stories or ‘hide’ details, etc and those questions are bred from that social media world. People read so many untruths they take as gospel that they accuse us of not reporting it. We have legal boundaries, but more than that, we have boundaries of truth and accuracy we must satisfy before we jump all over something someone using an anonymous account on X has claimed as fact. Remember the 'Irish Army on the streets' nonsense that spread at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. We didn't report that because it wasn't true, not because of any propaganda conspiracy. 

Politicians should know better too than to engage in this online activity, although some may earn electoral favour by getting on board, or so it seems. These same politicians should log out for a while, walk into the Dáil or Seanad or even the council chamber locally, and fight for regulations to get a grip on these Wild West social media platforms that are poisoning public opinion.

People talk about the deeds of dictators and war criminals, and so we should, and call them out, but there is no greater danger to humanity than that unvetted cesspit of doom that lives in our pockets.