The admission came during Prime Minister’s Questions in the Dáil Éireann on Wednesday, during which Justice Minister Helen McEntee sat in for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. McEntee told lawmakers that X, the social media site renamed from Twitter by CEO Elon Musk, had refused to take down “vile messages” on the site amid the Dublin riot last week.
McEntee was asked about police claims that “far-right ringleaders” had used “sophisticated communication online” to coordinate their activities during the riot. She said the Garda had been “actively engaging with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, or X” to take down what she described as “vile messages.”
While most companies were cooperating, “X were not. They did engage. They did not fulfill their own customer standards,” McEntee said.
The riot started on November 23 after a 49-year-old Algerian-Irish man was arrested and accused of stabbing five people outside a primary school in eastern Dublin, including three children, leaving a five-year-old girl and a woman in her 30s in critical condition.
Three passersby incapacitated the man, who had lived in Ireland for more than 20 years and became a naturalized citizen of the country. At the time of the attack, he had been staying at a special accommodation for homeless people, according to Irish media.
As news of the attack spread, a crowd grew near the scene of the crime, with many believing the man had been an illegal immigrant. They carried signs and chanted anti-immigrant slogans, and many wore face-covering balaclava masks and carried crowbars and other devices fashioned as weapons. As they grew increasingly violent, the crowd of several hundred overwhelmed the Gardai and set fire to several vehicles, including a city bus and a tram, as well as several businesses, which were also looted.
Police had subdued the riot after several hours and dispersed the crowd, with more than 35 people arrested during and after the riot.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the disturbance had been carried out by a "complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology" and called the riot "disgraceful.” He called on people "to act responsibly and not to listen to the misinformation and rumor that is circulating on social media."
After the riot, Musk attacked the Irish government for attempting to suppress posts, accusing Varadkar of “hating the Irish people” and carrying out a “massive attack on freedom of speech.”
Former mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor also attacked Varadkar’s government, claiming he was being made into a “scapegoat” for the riot after police said they were investigating his social media posts before and during the violence.
“Attempt to scapegoat me all you wish,” he posted on X. “If it makes you feel better, I will take it.”
The night before the stabbings, McGregor told his 10.3 million followers on X “Ireland, we are at war,” without further context.
During the riot, he replied to Harris’ comments about right-wing ideology being behind the violence by saying: “There is grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place and there has been zero action done to support the public in any way, shape or form with this frightening fact. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Make change or make way. Ireland for the victory.”
His next post that night simply said: “You reap what you sow.”
The former MMA star has since condemned the violence, but characterized it as a justified response to the government’s inaction on immigration, which he connected to a wave of recent violent attacks.
Interestingly, Musk has recently praised McGregor, endorsing a hypothetical election campaign by the former MMA fighter as “not a bad idea” and repeating McGregor’s position that Varadkar “hates the Irish people.”
“The current Irish government clearly cares more about praise from woke media than their own people,” Musk said in response to a proposal by Varadkar’s government to widen the country’s hate speech laws that he had made before the riot happened. “Suppression of the Irish people is the real crime,” Musk also said about the proposal.