The Tánaiste has warned that a “disturbing” aspect of being the victim of a fake online ad is that “it is part of the revenue model of these companies”.
Micheál Martin told the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence that when he sought to have the matter addressed: “The companies don’t respond at all.”
Currently, the companies leave it up to victims “to go to court, to get a court order to find out who’s behind” the fake material, which “potentially defamatory and that can undermine a person’s character”.
Fake ads can also “lure unsuspecting citizens to lose money or to invest in something”.
“You have to get forensic people to try and sift through the material to find identify the source,” Mr Martin said, adding that the fake said incorrectly that he was a millionaire.
“I’m not,” he noted.
Social media companies should not be allowed “to require citizens to go to the courts to find out who are behind fake ads,” Mr Martin added.
He said that the Electoral Commission needs to be empowered to respond, “because things will get worse”.
Mr Martin pointed to the “sophistication” of some scams.
“Various political people could be undermined in the course of an election campaign with very little recourse during the campaign,” he warned.
He was responding to Fine Gael TD David Stanton, who warned that such fake ads “could impact the outcome of an election”.
