Leo Varadkar has called on social media companies headquartered here to act on the vile racial abuse posted about English footballers online this week.
Mr Varadkar said social media companies with major bases here - like Facebook and Twitter - “have a responsibility not to promote and to take down” the disgusting racist comments.
Three players who missed penalties in England’s heartbreaking penalty shootout final loss to Italy on Sunday night have been targeted by sick internet trolls.
The three players were Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, and they are all black Englishmen.
Many of the companies have their European head offices in Ireland and so the Tánaiste has said he wants to publicly call for them to act on the abuse.
Mr Varadkar said: “Certainly I would say to anyone who’s engaging in any form of abuse online that that’s really unacceptable.
“And certainly I’d be saying to the tech companies that they have a responsibility not to promote and to take down anything of a racist nature in that regard.
“I haven’t contacted them yet about it, but it’s the type of message I would happily make public here.”
Mr Varadkar was speaking at an IDA report launch in Dublin on Monday morning.
Social media and Big Tech companies employ tens of thousands of people in Dublin and around the country.
And since many of them have their EU headquarters here, the regulation of their content is under the remit of our Government and the Data Protection Commissioners.
However, the laws governing are still only emerging as it is still a relatively new sector, and it is not clear how much responsibility the companies should take for their users.
