Good on him, it pisses me off to no end that iarnróid Éireann use X as the only place to announce live travel updates, hopefully they will follow suite
We should be putting pressure on every elected representative, and every public organisation, to switch off Twitter/X and move to Mastodon (non-profit German social medial) and/or Bluesky.
It's so stupid because the modern version of the protocol they use to send service information to Google Maps and other tracking apps/websites, GTFS Realtime, has the option to provide Service Alert and Trip Modification information but Irish Rail and the NTA don't bother to generate those Feed Entities, just Trip Updates and Vehicle Positions.
At least Google seems to be trying to workaround this by having some type of bot monitoring their Twitter feed and trying to match it to the GTFS data but because of how much of a finicky hack that is it's not really reliable, I've only seen it work about half the time.
If the government gets to gatekeep access to social media, public services may be forced to communicate via their own platforms. I sincerely hope that the likes of IE are already preparing for that possibility.
What makes it useful or valuable isn't some kind special technology or algorithm. It's the critical mass of people that post there that are still worth listening too. If they leave there are other better platforms that will fill the gap.
It is of course a total sewer. To make it worth visiting my block/mute list is in the 100s including the owner of the site.
Banning social media because you don't like the things people say on it is slightly different to being unable to properly control a one ton pile of steel at speed.
Why should we let harmful propaganda and outright lies , infiltrate the country , with the intention of causing civil unrest . I would also argue that’s it’s not a false equivalency, plenty of people can drive safely after 6pints or more , just as plenty of people can decipher the propaganda and hate mongering for what it is , the laws there to prevent harm to those who can’t. The burning of private property to hurt refugees or Dublin riots , where fuelled social media X and Meta willingly spreading lies and allowing coordination between criminals. Banning something that causes harm is not fascist, but giving fascists a platform that is biased in their favour is.
They absolutely should. It has been patently obvious for some time that remaining on the platform is not simply negligent, it is an act of conscious assistance to violent extremism. No politician or organisation in the country should be using it.
someone requested an apology, so Grok's own take on what happened:
"I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues."
even before this some of the most common comments under innocent selfies were "grok turn her around" or "grok undress her", and it seems obvious this wasn't going to quiet down naturally.
AI is problematic, but Grok is even more so than the others. For example, if you upload a photo of yourself online someone who downloads it can use Grok to do a very nifty alteration to artificially remove your clothes in the photo.
Grok has no way of knowing the age of the individuals in the photos that this is being done to.
For all their many many faults, I understand that Open AI and Google AI are incredibly strict on what can and can't be done.
Corey Doctorow describes well the difficulty of leaving platforms despite incredible "enshittifaction." Fear of losing contact with old networks or sources of information. It's completely understandable but I'm glad more and more people are switching.
I wish someone with a bit of swing, would declare something of a Day X.
A poignant date on the calendar, where everyone just deactivates their accounts en masse and as a political point. I thought Mayday last year would have been a good moment, given how Musk has been trying to systematically dismantle unions in the states.
The best time to quit Twitter was in 2023 when Musk sacked the moderators and let Nazis run riot. He interfered in the Turkish election that year because Erdogan told him to. The so-called "free speech" guy suppressed free speech in a democratic election and let Erdogan win.
The second best time to quit Twitter was in 2024, when it became very obvious that reporting antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ tweets didn't work, rolled over like a dog for Trump and started tweeting stuff in support of McGregor and abuse to our politicians.
If you're still on it now in the big 2026, that means you agree with Musk. There is no reason for anyone to still be on it or still pay to use it (Simon Harris, Ivana Bacik, Micheal Martin and the official SF account have all tweeted on there today)
I left in December 2025nafter virtually no use for over a year, and im sorry to hear this means I'm fully MAGA. Please, tell me how to live up to your standards in future.
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R1] Relevance to Irish Politics
This sub predominantly deals with the politics and society of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Discussion concerning The United Kingdom and the European Union (when relevant to the ROI and NI) is permitted also.
If you want to discuss affairs further afield, this is not the place and will be removed. If you believe that it is relevant although not directly you can make your case in the post or reach out to us via Modmail.
The fact that he is the first TD to do this, after years of absolute shite being pumped through that cesspit, just shows you how spineless our Oireachtas is
Good on him. It really puzzles the shit out of me why any politician stays on that sewer of a platform.
Gary should lead a boycott and encourage the rest of Leinster House to of the same and leave X. It would be a hugely popular gesture which is why I can’t understand why one of them has not already thought of it!
Unless everyone suddenly migrates to Mastodon, then it's a case of choosing the lesser evil, and there's still too much of a demographic on Facebook for politicians to abandon that means of communication.
So it's all about the CSAM? The meta algorithms are as toxic as X for children and people in general. As well as promoting anti democratic content when it suits them. It's all for profit and ideology too.
i mean twitter is obviously worse currently. grok was literally calling itself mecha hitler recently. the fact that child abuse exists elsewhere doesn’t mean you can’t want to take a moral stance against elons stupid level libertarian delusions.
What’s being reported is obviously serious and disturbing, but it is also a systemic, cross-platform moderation failure, not something unique to X. These issues have existed and still exist on Meta, Google, Discord, Telegram, and elsewhere. Pretending otherwise is disingenuous.
Do those platforms have in-built AI assistants that have generated deepfake sexualised images of children?
Besides, this whole debacle is just another development in the ongoing deterioration of Twitter. It is owned by an avowed white supremacist who uses it to boost far-right propaganda. There have been many reasons before this to leave Twitter and I don’t know why you’re getting so upset that some public representatives are finally deciding to pull the trigger.
Do you read the links you are posting or do you just send them hoping that one of them will help you argument?
Do you understand the difference between AI generated sexualised content being present on a platform (still obviously not a good thing) and Grok literally creating the sexualised content on demand by users?
You claimed that there have been instances in the past where AI assistants on other platforms have generated sexualised images of children, like Grok has in the last week. You have been unable to provide any examples of this, however.
But I’m sure Elon is proud of you for your sterling work trying to defend him and his CSAM producing AI assistant.
I don't recall defending X myself. Might be your, incorrect, read on it. Personally, it's too full of Zionists for my liking. What I did do was call out a politician for politicking and looking for media time. Which he duly got in the end.
Also you're splitting hairs over created by or suggested by. Not much room in the middle there
Just reread my post, and I don't think I said anywhere in it that he couldn't post about where he would be posting in future. If you think I said that please point out where....
I thought this was a forum to express opinions. I expressed mine. It happened to be about something a politician said.. The politician can do and post what they want. I've never said otherwise. You can keep saying I did til the cows come home but you'll still be wrong.
To me it came across like an opportunity to get media time. I am allowed to have that opinion :)
I'm not sure about that. If we were all hanging out in a bar we loved that slowly became more and more Nazified. I'd be quite happy with someone doing a bit of grand standing if it led to more and more of us walking out of the place.
Most tech companies support Trump, most of us are still using their tech. Aren't there lots of non-tech ubiquitous companies that have far-right CEOs, US supermarkets owners etc
With X the creation and publication of the image are essentially one in the same that makes it worse. Is it really moderation, not the creation guardrails?
The problem with getting AI to write your comments for you is that you don't appear to remember what's in them, but the rest of us can still see the shit you said:
You can acknowledge the seriousness of CSAM without turning a moderation failure into a moral identity test or treating a platform exit as some kind of ethical victory.
This isn't a moderation failure. Trying to reduce it to that, and falsely claiming that it is not an issue unique to X and its LLM, is defending the behaviour. It's a poor defence, but nevertheless.
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R3] Argue in Good Faith
Everyone is here of their own volition to discuss the topic of Irish Politics. People are not here to be caught in ruthless vendetta’s of spiraling fallacies and bad faith arguments.
State your intent clearly, provide evidence to the point you want to make and engage with others arguments in much the same manner.
Trolling, Baiting, Flaming, etc are not allowed.
Excessive debate etiquette in place of an argument will be considered bad faith.
Transparent Agenda Spamming i.e. consistently posting exclusively about the same topic, will also fall under this rule.
The other platforms are cancerous too but they are mostly acting for profit, much of the horrible impacts of the platforms happen to be profitable for them.
But X is run by Musk who is basically a fascist at this stage and is pretty clear in that he wants to use X and lots of his other ventures and his own influence to push far right aims.
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R3] Argue in Good Faith
Everyone is here of their own volition to discuss the topic of Irish Politics. People are not here to be caught in ruthless vendetta’s of spiraling fallacies and bad faith arguments.
State your intent clearly, provide evidence to the point you want to make and engage with others arguments in much the same manner.
Trolling, Baiting, Flaming, etc are not allowed.
Excessive debate etiquette in place of an argument will be considered bad faith.
Transparent Agenda Spamming i.e. consistently posting exclusively about the same topic, will also fall under this rule.
MOD ADDENDUM: AI Checkers showing long text reply as 95% AI generated. People are here to interact with each other, not read AI prompts.
Good on him, it pisses me off to no end that iarnróid Éireann use X as the only place to announce live travel updates, hopefully they will follow suite
It really is not good enough that they're using that app to broadcast updates. They should be doing it with their own app.
100% I've emailed them numerous times about it, so frustrating!
We should be putting pressure on every elected representative, and every public organisation, to switch off Twitter/X and move to Mastodon (non-profit German social medial) and/or Bluesky.
Or just provide updates on the Irish rail app. That would make too much sense though
Next thing you’ll be suggesting something mad like being able to buy tickets on there.
It's so stupid because the modern version of the protocol they use to send service information to Google Maps and other tracking apps/websites, GTFS Realtime, has the option to provide Service Alert and Trip Modification information but Irish Rail and the NTA don't bother to generate those Feed Entities, just Trip Updates and Vehicle Positions.
At least Google seems to be trying to workaround this by having some type of bot monitoring their Twitter feed and trying to match it to the GTFS data but because of how much of a finicky hack that is it's not really reliable, I've only seen it work about half the time.
The only reason I still have that app
If the government gets to gatekeep access to social media, public services may be forced to communicate via their own platforms. I sincerely hope that the likes of IE are already preparing for that possibility.
At least on Google maps their Twitter updates occasionally show up when you click a station if there’s a delay
Good on him
To my knowledge, he is the first TD to make such an announcement. Will other TDs follow suit?
Hopefully, why can’t we just ban it? It’s pure brain rot.
What makes it useful or valuable isn't some kind special technology or algorithm. It's the critical mass of people that post there that are still worth listening too. If they leave there are other better platforms that will fill the gap.
It is of course a total sewer. To make it worth visiting my block/mute list is in the 100s including the owner of the site.
Full of so much illegal shite too it’s crazy. And like 75% of the sites traffic is bots promoting Only fans accounts
Thats all of social media at this point unfortunately
That's absurd.
May as well ban every social media including reddit then...
Banning things like that is ironically a bit fascist-y
It's a social media platform owned and ran by a fascist that allows people to make AI CSAM.
I don't think banning it would be fascist in any way.
So we should be allowed to drink and drive?
No, holy fucking false equivalency batman.
Banning social media because you don't like the things people say on it is slightly different to being unable to properly control a one ton pile of steel at speed.
Both are actively harmful
Why should we let harmful propaganda and outright lies , infiltrate the country , with the intention of causing civil unrest . I would also argue that’s it’s not a false equivalency, plenty of people can drive safely after 6pints or more , just as plenty of people can decipher the propaganda and hate mongering for what it is , the laws there to prevent harm to those who can’t. The burning of private property to hurt refugees or Dublin riots , where fuelled social media X and Meta willingly spreading lies and allowing coordination between criminals. Banning something that causes harm is not fascist, but giving fascists a platform that is biased in their favour is.
They absolutely should. It has been patently obvious for some time that remaining on the platform is not simply negligent, it is an act of conscious assistance to violent extremism. No politician or organisation in the country should be using it.
Looks like Greens decided to leave in December
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41771657.html
Eoin, did you collect the eggs?
Good on him for getting out of that reactionary cesspit. Can someone fill me in on what he's referring to with Grok?
apparently you can use grok ai to make child abuse images
Jfc
someone requested an apology, so Grok's own take on what happened:
"I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues."
even before this some of the most common comments under innocent selfies were "grok turn her around" or "grok undress her", and it seems obvious this wasn't going to quiet down naturally.
https://x.com/grok/status/2006525486021705785
I have heard claims that Grok has repeatedly edited photos of children to render them naked.
Fucking vile. Cheers for filling me in - glad to not have to look that up
AI is problematic, but Grok is even more so than the others. For example, if you upload a photo of yourself online someone who downloads it can use Grok to do a very nifty alteration to artificially remove your clothes in the photo.
Grok has no way of knowing the age of the individuals in the photos that this is being done to.
For all their many many faults, I understand that Open AI and Google AI are incredibly strict on what can and can't be done.
They don't even download it, they just reply to the tweet that the image was originally posted in.
No TDS should be on it, it's become a far right cess pool
And if the non far right leave in enough numbers, the far right will get bored and the site will collapse
Good move,
Fair play to him.
Corey Doctorow describes well the difficulty of leaving platforms despite incredible "enshittifaction." Fear of losing contact with old networks or sources of information. It's completely understandable but I'm glad more and more people are switching.
I wish someone with a bit of swing, would declare something of a Day X.
A poignant date on the calendar, where everyone just deactivates their accounts en masse and as a political point. I thought Mayday last year would have been a good moment, given how Musk has been trying to systematically dismantle unions in the states.
Every day is a reason now.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/musks-spacex-others-win-us-court-challenge-labor-boards-structure-2025-08-19/
I got that Doctorow book for crimbo and must say, its a great read.
The best time to quit Twitter was in 2023 when Musk sacked the moderators and let Nazis run riot. He interfered in the Turkish election that year because Erdogan told him to. The so-called "free speech" guy suppressed free speech in a democratic election and let Erdogan win.
The second best time to quit Twitter was in 2024, when it became very obvious that reporting antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+ tweets didn't work, rolled over like a dog for Trump and started tweeting stuff in support of McGregor and abuse to our politicians.
If you're still on it now in the big 2026, that means you agree with Musk. There is no reason for anyone to still be on it or still pay to use it (Simon Harris, Ivana Bacik, Micheal Martin and the official SF account have all tweeted on there today)
I left in December 2025nafter virtually no use for over a year, and im sorry to hear this means I'm fully MAGA. Please, tell me how to live up to your standards in future.
[removed]
It .. Does look a bit like him ..
Ai at it again, filth for brains carry on
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R1] Relevance to Irish Politics
This sub predominantly deals with the politics and society of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Discussion concerning The United Kingdom and the European Union (when relevant to the ROI and NI) is permitted also.
If you want to discuss affairs further afield, this is not the place and will be removed. If you believe that it is relevant although not directly you can make your case in the post or reach out to us via Modmail.
How is anyone on twitter / x these days
The fact that he is the first TD to do this, after years of absolute shite being pumped through that cesspit, just shows you how spineless our Oireachtas is
I've zero time for Gannon but I'll give him this one, fair play.
This isn't the first disturbing thing we've seen on Twitter but good to know there's a line.
Fair play to him
If this doesn't wake everyone up to the dangers of Musk/Twitter and unregulated AI nothing will.
Good on him. It really puzzles the shit out of me why any politician stays on that sewer of a platform.
Gary should lead a boycott and encourage the rest of Leinster House to of the same and leave X. It would be a hugely popular gesture which is why I can’t understand why one of them has not already thought of it!
I hope people follow him on the alternative platforms now. Fair play to him.
We all need to start boycotting the internet because of it's CSAM controversy.
Good for him.
Is there a European alternative we can start moving towards?
Mastodon for TwiX and Pixelfed for Instagram
Good man Gary but fuck me it's a low bar.
"I will not lend my voice to a company that has chosen profit and ideology over the basic safety of children."
... Anyway check me out on Instagram 🫠
Baby steps I suppose.
When this move looks good for him, others will follow no doubt.
Irish Patriots and the protect women and children crowd are currently checks notes defending an AI that creates CSAM
Government should slap a tax on it. Why not? It remains legal, but will be abandoned by the masses.
Fair play to Gannon. It's just shocking that others haven't done the same.
Its about time, its an absolute cesspit for years
this app is the new 4chan glad i uninstalled it on my phone and rarely use it on my laptop
Maidin mhaith! Was he just woken up from a coma or why did it took him a year to come to that conclusion?
Ah yes, meta and tiktok, the ethical choice of outlet..
Unless everyone suddenly migrates to Mastodon, then it's a case of choosing the lesser evil, and there's still too much of a demographic on Facebook for politicians to abandon that means of communication.
I understand that, but it does come across as a bit hollow no? I don't really see how they're a lesser evil tbh
Meta don't actually allow child sexual abuse material on their platform, or actively generate such material themselves, unlike X...!!
So it's all about the CSAM? The meta algorithms are as toxic as X for children and people in general. As well as promoting anti democratic content when it suits them. It's all for profit and ideology too.
I’m devastated
[removed]
i mean twitter is obviously worse currently. grok was literally calling itself mecha hitler recently. the fact that child abuse exists elsewhere doesn’t mean you can’t want to take a moral stance against elons stupid level libertarian delusions.
Do those platforms have in-built AI assistants that have generated deepfake sexualised images of children?
[removed]
When?
It’s not even just this problem, Grok is also creating non-consensual sexualised deepfake images of women. And we know X’s owner has no problem with this because he was literally joking about it on his account last week.
Besides, this whole debacle is just another development in the ongoing deterioration of Twitter. It is owned by an avowed white supremacist who uses it to boost far-right propaganda. There have been many reasons before this to leave Twitter and I don’t know why you’re getting so upset that some public representatives are finally deciding to pull the trigger.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meta-facebook-sexualized-ai-deepfake-celebrity-images-spread/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Neither of those links outline examples of AI assistants generating deepfake sexualised images of children.
https://x.com/i/status/2008713413405594058
Do you read the links you are posting or do you just send them hoping that one of them will help you argument?
Do you understand the difference between AI generated sexualised content being present on a platform (still obviously not a good thing) and Grok literally creating the sexualised content on demand by users?
You claimed that there have been instances in the past where AI assistants on other platforms have generated sexualised images of children, like Grok has in the last week. You have been unable to provide any examples of this, however.
But I’m sure Elon is proud of you for your sterling work trying to defend him and his CSAM producing AI assistant.
I don't recall defending X myself. Might be your, incorrect, read on it. Personally, it's too full of Zionists for my liking. What I did do was call out a politician for politicking and looking for media time. Which he duly got in the end.
Also you're splitting hairs over created by or suggested by. Not much room in the middle there
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R2] Respect Others
Debate the topic, not the person.
Personal insults, abusive or hostile language — whether aimed at other users or public figures — will not be tolerated.
You can challenge ideas, but you must do so constructively.
So public representatives shouldn't inform the public of where they'll be posting updates?
Your post sounds AI generated too.
Just reread my post, and I don't think I said anywhere in it that he couldn't post about where he would be posting in future. If you think I said that please point out where....
So Gary shouldn't tell people on X why he's not going to post on X any more, he should only tell them where he'll post in the future?
If he called a press conference or spoke at length in the dail about it then it would be grandstanding.
There's no need for all the hyperbole, you have written more about his exit from X than he did.
I thought this was a forum to express opinions. I expressed mine. It happened to be about something a politician said.. The politician can do and post what they want. I've never said otherwise. You can keep saying I did til the cows come home but you'll still be wrong.
To me it came across like an opportunity to get media time. I am allowed to have that opinion :)
I'm not sure about that. If we were all hanging out in a bar we loved that slowly became more and more Nazified. I'd be quite happy with someone doing a bit of grand standing if it led to more and more of us walking out of the place.
Most tech companies support Trump, most of us are still using their tech. Aren't there lots of non-tech ubiquitous companies that have far-right CEOs, US supermarkets owners etc
With X the creation and publication of the image are essentially one in the same that makes it worse. Is it really moderation, not the creation guardrails?
This is so obviously written by AI.
Good on ya, want some em dashes to prove it?
That's ok. You continue the worthy goal of defending the software that creates Child Sexual Abuse Material using the best tools available to you.
Good arguing there pal. Your words, not mine. I said a politician was politicking, not that I like X. Too full of Zionists for my liking.
The problem with getting AI to write your comments for you is that you don't appear to remember what's in them, but the rest of us can still see the shit you said:
This isn't a moderation failure. Trying to reduce it to that, and falsely claiming that it is not an issue unique to X and its LLM, is defending the behaviour. It's a poor defence, but nevertheless.
[removed]
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R3] Argue in Good Faith
Everyone is here of their own volition to discuss the topic of Irish Politics. People are not here to be caught in ruthless vendetta’s of spiraling fallacies and bad faith arguments.
State your intent clearly, provide evidence to the point you want to make and engage with others arguments in much the same manner.
Trolling, Baiting, Flaming, etc are not allowed.
Excessive debate etiquette in place of an argument will be considered bad faith.
Transparent Agenda Spamming i.e. consistently posting exclusively about the same topic, will also fall under this rule.
A TD pretty much can’t not be on social media.
The other platforms are cancerous too but they are mostly acting for profit, much of the horrible impacts of the platforms happen to be profitable for them.
But X is run by Musk who is basically a fascist at this stage and is pretty clear in that he wants to use X and lots of his other ventures and his own influence to push far right aims.
This comment / post was removed because it violates the following sub rule:
[R3] Argue in Good Faith
Everyone is here of their own volition to discuss the topic of Irish Politics. People are not here to be caught in ruthless vendetta’s of spiraling fallacies and bad faith arguments.
State your intent clearly, provide evidence to the point you want to make and engage with others arguments in much the same manner.
Trolling, Baiting, Flaming, etc are not allowed.
Excessive debate etiquette in place of an argument will be considered bad faith.
Transparent Agenda Spamming i.e. consistently posting exclusively about the same topic, will also fall under this rule.
MOD ADDENDUM: AI Checkers showing long text reply as 95% AI generated. People are here to interact with each other, not read AI prompts.