Political Ads
Campaign round up: Irish Freedom Party dominating YouTube ad spend
The Irish Freedom Party spent €4,100 in the past 3 weeks on YouTube ads, the biggest spenders on YouTube ads this election.
Latest
Four resources for election candidates and watchers
As I work through more ads and spending data (coming soon), I wanted to share 4 brilliant resources that have really impressed me this week. 1) A dashboard of all local election candidates The very good people over at Women for Election have built an easy to navigate dashboard showing
Latest MEP candidate ad spending; and what does it cost to win (and lose) a Euro seat?
We last looked at online ad spending by MEP candidates two weeks ago. Since then campaigning has ramped up, and we are starting to see patterns emerging that tell us about party strategies. It also sparks lots of questions about the role of money in Irish elections, something we ordinarily
Violence is not political speech; and hybrid online / offline abuse
I was on RTE’s Prime Time last night to talk about recent violent attacks against canvassers and candidates, and if this could be connected with heated policy debates on migration. My main point was that violence and criminality are not political speech; they are political violence, tactics to silence
Euro election ads, that Sky News report on US tweets, & "OpenAI Ireland" lawyers up
Welcome new subscribers, who maybe heard about The Briefing on RTE's This Week, or the For Tech's Sake podcast. More about the newsletter here. I'm covering 3 things in 700 words this week, so lets dive in 1) European Parliament election ads Nomination for
6 weeks to go: Political Ads for the Local & European Elections
The Local and European Elections are on June 7th, and until then The Briefing will be bringing you a weekly Political Ad Monitor of who is spending what online, and what we might gleam from this. Do reach out with any thoughts, questions or ideas that you have for this
Europe
"Pay or Okay" not here to stay
Europe is likely to say "non" to the idea of "Pay or Okay". As regulators set the bar for consent higher when the social cost of opting out is also high, are the ideas of privacy and consent merging?
3 Things to Watch Out For in the Local & European Election Campaigns
It is nine weeks today to the local and European Parliament elections. A lot has changed in the 4+ years since we last had a chance to pick any of our representatives; Covid, war in Europe, Brexit, the riots, etc. etc. etc. So what should we be looking out for,
A.I.
Here's how our MEPs voted on Europe's new A.I. rules
I’m in Brussels this week, and our 13 MEPs are up the road in Strasbourg voting on Europe’s first substantive piece of regulation on Artificial Intelligence, the A.I. Act. The regulation passed in a landslide - 523 of Europe’s elected reps voted for the regulation, or
One party is spending as much as all the others combined on political ads
Welcome to Issue One of The Briefing! I said I'd be brief, so I'm diving right in. We are voting in 2 referendums next week, so let's kick off with a snapshot of Irish online political ads. Energy for the referendum both off and
Welcome, and Elon's "feud" with the Irish state
Thank you for signing up! The Briefing will formally launch next week; right now I am planning out the first few posts, starting to rope in a few friends to help, and getting some design work done. BUT - while you are here, one thing that is on my mind
What is The Briefing?
Thank you for asking! This is a newsletter about technology and politics, through an Irish lens. It is about two big theses of how tech and politics come together on this beautiful island of ours: 1. That technology is having a profound effect on our democracy, and this is worth