Facebook and Twitter offer special support services to politicians over online abuse
FACEBOOK and Twitter are offering special support services for TDs and Senators who feel they are the subject of abuse online.
The two social media giants provided briefings to politicians earlier this year with both promising enhanced facilities for reporting harassment and other harmful content.
According to an internal Oireachtas paper, Facebook opened a new reporting channel that TDs and Senators can have direct access to.
They also promised to deliver briefings to politicians focused on “safety and security” for their use of both Facebook and their parent company Meta’s other major platform Instagram.
These seminars would take place in Leinster House and would be carried out on a regular basis to cater for all working there, according to the briefing.
It said: “Facebook to work with the Oireachtas in encouraging Members to use the [name redacted] reporting channel.”
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Twitter said they would be carrying out “best practice” training for TDs, Senators, and their staff, with plans for a series of workshops.
A “partner support portal” was also made available to all political parties and groups with the Oireachtas to take a role in helping “expedite responses” to abusive material that was reported.
Twitter said they would “onboard” a centralised Oireachtas account to the portal that would allow for direct access to report abusive or harmful tweets.
The memo said: “This account owner can also act as a primary point of contact between Twitter and the Houses of Oireachtas for escalations.”
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Twitter also highlighted two new features that they believed would make the platform less threatening and abusive for TDs and Senators.
The first is an existing feature that prompts people about to post something “harmful or offensive” to reconsider it.
Twitter said when prompted, 34 per cent of people either revised their response or decided not to post, while accounts also became less likely to post abusive tweets in future.
A second “safety mode” the platform is experimenting with “proactively” blocks accounts that appear to be “potentially abusive”.
The Oireachtas memo – prepared in January of this year and released under FOI – said the next steps would be to arrange a series of workshops and briefings with both Facebook and Twitter.
It said: “[We can] also engage with both Twitter and Facebook to ensure members have fast and reliable access to report material they deem inappropriate or threatening.”
