Google’s abortion vote decision proves its power must be curbed

If you are a Yes supporter in the upcoming abortion vote, you may have punched the air on Wednesday when Google, just 16 days from polling day, suddenly banned all referendum advertisements, including those from legitimate Irish campaigners.

If you are a No supporter, you may have punched the wall, at what looks like the hobbling of your side’s strategy at the 11th hour. It was well-known that No had a huge edge over Yes in online ads, and was relying on this to reach undecided voters as referendum day closed in. The Yes side were complaining about it all week.

Emotions are running high on both sides of the debate. One woman even knifed the explicit posters of an anti-abortion group outside The Irish Times office this week. But, if you can, please try to set aside your bias for a moment – your Yes joy at Google's decision or your No despair – and think of the potential ramifications of this corporate intervention in Irish constitutional politics. For that is what it is.

Does it not concern you that executives unknown, at a Californian-headquartered, New York-listed technology behemoth can take a sudden, seemingly arbitrary decision at the height of an Irish referendum campaign, potentially affecting the wording of Bunreacht na hÉireann? It terrifies me.

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The Yes side, which was emphasising ground campaigning, is delighted about Google’s ban, while No, which now has little time to pivot from digital, is distraught.

The political editor of The Irish Times, Pat Leahy, has received indications from his sources that Facebook and Google "became fearful in the past week that if the referendum was defeated, they would be the subject of an avalanche of blame" because No was more effectively using their platforms to target voters.

Foreign interference

But at least, when Facebook banned only foreign ads targeting Irish voters, earlier this week, it seemed likely to purify our national debate. Google’s decision, the practical impact of which blatantly benefits one campaign side in a referendum at the expense of the other, is the very definition of foreign interference in our system. Why did it not just ban foreign ads like Facebook?

When we talk about “corporate citizens”, nobody ever intended that they would potentially have an influence in the make-up of our Constitution. Bunreacht na hÉireann is a legal bedrock written by the people, not some corporate mission statement.

Perhaps you do not care. You just want your side to win the vote and for the other shower to lose, and you’ll take any help you can get, even if it comes via a $754 billion, stock-market-listed US company. Brexiteers and Trump gained murky advantage through online. Revenge. The end justifies the means, you know?

On a human level, that thinking is understandable. But that does not make it right.

What will you do if, the next time a foreign corporate entity intervenes in a passionate Irish politic event, you are on the wrong side of the argument? If, like Sir Thomas More's angry foresters in A Man for All Seasons, we chop down all our principles now, how could we stand upright in the winds that would then blow?

Google says it banned all abortion referendum ads, even domestic ones, to protect “election integrity”. It is not terribly reassuring to think that such fundamental action could be outsourced to a US company worth more than twice Ireland’s economy. Better to let real citizens, and not self-interested corporate ones, do that protecting.

Societal steering

There has long been an argument that Facebook and Google should be economically regulated in the same manner as public utilities. They are the gatekeepers of so much of the digital economy, or so the theory goes, and are as fundamental to everyday western living as our water or power systems.

By dint of their knowledge of our every whim and peccadillo, their power to influence and their opacity (Google has so far flatly refused to further explain its decision), we should take our societal steering wheel back from this digital duopoly.

Regulate them more effectively. Draft laws to limit their influence, their power. I cannot tell you precisely what those laws should be – that is a nut for legislators to crack. But draft laws to better limit their influence over legislators, too.

Could you imagine a regulated utility such as An Post, at a minute to midnight in an important referendum campaign, suddenly backtracking to cancel all political mail drops in a move that, practically, would favour the strategy of one side over another?

Precisely that argument was advanced on Wednesday by the No campaign, in a heated debate over Google’s decision. You don’t have to be in the No camp to see the merit of the argument. Except, of course, if you’re deliberately looking the other way.

But herein lies the rub. It will be hard for our politicians to curb the power of the digital giants when they are cuddled up beside them beneath the duvet, giggling sweetly into each other’s ears about all those lovely jobs and their voluptuous contributions to the State’s economic coffers.

FOOTNOTES

Apple and Athenry

Apple's announcement that it won't be proceeding with its €850 million data centre in Athenry ends the worst-kept secret in Irish political and economic circles.

In September last year, when reports really began swirling (hat-tip, Bloomberg) that Apple was going cold on the idea of an Athenry facility, Sean Canney TD said those reports were incorrect. He said he had spoken to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who had spoken to Apple: “They confirmed to him that they are still committed to the project in Athenry.”

Four days later, Varadkar told the Dáil that the company was still committed to Athenry. Less than six weeks later, the mood music changed when Varadkar visited the US, and got no guarantees from Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook.

Now, here we are eight months after the reports first emerged, and Athenry has been left with nothing.

Politicians, take note: don’t cuddle up too closely to tech multinationals. They might dump you when it suits them, but keep all the mix tapes.

Gender weary

At The Irish Times business awards in Dublin's Mansion House on Wednesday, great emphasis was placed by several of the speakers, including distinguished leadership award winner Mark Fitzgerald, on the gender diversity among award winners.

However, the winner of the businessperson of the year award, Siobhán Talbot of Glanbia, looked decidedly nonplussed at all this talk of gender diversity. Perhaps she is looking forward to the time when it makes no odds one way or the other, for better or worse. We all are.

One more thing

Paul Gallagher, the former attorney general who is representing Independent News and Media in its bid to halt a State application for High Court inspectors, spoke unopposed for nigh on 300 minutes at the hearing on Wednesday.

“Can I have just five more minutes?” he asked the judge at 4.03pm. At 4.16pm, he finished with a smile. The wheels of justice turn slowly, especially when we’re approaching tea-time.