At election time politicians want to maximise their exposure through any medium possible. But recently many have chosen to abandon the X/Twitter platform in response to the release of the Grok app which uses X to produce and distribute modified images without any restrictions leading to large-scale production of child pornography images.
With a bye-election coming soon in Galway West, Green Party candidate Niall Murphy this week spoke about his social media campaign. As a software engineer with 30 years experience, he said that recent controversies had made him consider dropping X from the platforms that he uses.
“For some time the widespread use of bots, the toxic tone of the discourse, and an algorithm that spread more hate than happiness, had made me consider dropping X from the set of social media platforms that I use,” he said.
“I stuck with it mainly because many journalists were active on the platform, so it had value in reaching them. But the criminal activities of the company and users in producing illegal images was a turning point and I have abandoned it. I get it that some politicians have decided to ‘stay on the pitch’ but it is not for me.
“I use Instagram and TikTok for short posts and videos and Facebook and LinkedIn for long-form text pieces. Bluesky is the platform that most faithfully reproduces what Twitter originally was and is a place where some normal exchanges of ideas can happen and most accounts seem to be real people!
A number of Garda investigations are taking place into images produced by Grok, and there is pressure to change Irish law.
“While the Grok fiasco shone a light on illegal image generation, there are many other AI workloads where we need to regulate. Fake news, election interference, phone scams, and manipulation of financial markets are some of the concerns.
“AI is an inevitable part of our future, but guardrails to prevent its worst abuses are vital. Everything from cars to toys to power tools have safety standards. They have regulation, but big tech does not want to follow the same standards,” he said.
