X-odus: The councillors dropping Twitter
A number of Cork city councillors have announced they will be leaving the platform X (formerly Twitter) because of the ongoing Grok AI scandal.
The AI tool was allowing users to generate sexually explicit deepfake images of people, including children. This feature has since been restricted to premium users.
Green Party councillors Oliver Moran, Honore Kamegni, and Dan Boyle, as well as Labour Party councillors John Maher and Peter Horgan have all announced they will be leaving the platform.
However, Cllr Moran said while the scandal over Grok was certainly the last straw for his use of X, it wasn’t a sudden decision.
“The app has been going downhill now for the last two years,” he said. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s completely detached from reality.”
“Twitter used to be the pulse of Cork city. If you wanted to know what was going on in the city, you went there. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s so full of nonsense, of conspiracy theories and misinformation, that it just doesn’t serve public representatives anymore,” he said.
The diminishing of its relevance for public representatives is one echoed by Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy, who said he only checks the platform once every few weeks.
He said he finds Meta’s offering – Facebook and Instagram – to be much more useful for his councillor work.
Labour’s John Maher said something similar, with his only engagement on the platform in a long time being sharing posts, rather than posting himself. However, he did confirm that he would be deleting his account.
The usefulness of Facebook compared to Twitter is something that Cllr Moran has also found.
“Facebook is vibrant, and you can certainly find yourself having discussions with people you disagree with. However, the crucial difference is that on Facebook, you can be sure that the people you’re talking to are real.
“And in my experience, if you honestly engage with someone, they’ll honestly engage with you,” he said.
By contrast, Fine Gael Cllr Shane O’Callaghan has said he will not be leaving the platform. He said that as a public representative, he needed to be available where his constituents are, and that included X. He also felt that some of the moves to leave the platform came across as chasing a fad.
“To each their own, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but to me it seems to be virtue signalling a bit. How many of the people who have said that they’ll come off it will stay off it, or have deleted their accounts?”
He said he “absolutely condemned” the use of Grok to produce sexually explicit deepfakes, but he opposed moves being floated in the UK to ban the platform. The scandal has gained considerable traction in the past week.
Minister for Communications Patrick Donovan has deleted his account over the scandal. His party, Fine Gael, said they will be remaining on the platform as it is an effective platform for communicating with the media. Niamh Smyth, Minister of State with Responsibility for AI, has said she will be meeting X officials to discuss the issue, and it may be inappropriate for the government to maintain a presence on the platform.
On Wednesday, Labour Party Senator Laura Harmon said banning X is a decision that should be considered.
This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.