Josepha Madigan, Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has spoken about why she thinks social media is the biggest threat faced by Western democracy.

The Minister wants the government to put measures in place to protect the integrity of voting and other political issues in Ireland.

"It's obvious that there's a very high risk of the use of online platforms in terms of spreading misinformation online and the risk of cyber attacks on our electoral system, and that's quite worrying."

She points to the US election and Brexit as examples of how this is already happening.

"We have to regulate transparency of online political advertising and pursue regulatory alternatives."

Ellen Coyne, journalist with The Times Ireland edition, has also detailed how Twitter has refused to take down offensive items including hate speech, despite having an abuse policy in place that is intended to combat these issues.

Ellen says some Irish Twitter users have reported being repeatedly targeted, and that the offensive content "ranged from references to child sex abuse, taunting rape victims, disturbing messages from stalkers, homophobia and transphobia."

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