Fake online adverts using Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s image are believed to have originated in Belarus and Russia.
The Fianna Fáil leader spoke about his efforts to learn the identity of those behind the adverts as he outlined Government plans to overhaul Ireland’s defamation laws.
Currently people seeking the identity of anonymous people behind defamatory online advertising or social media posts must seek an order from the High Court directing internet companies to provide such information.
Under the Government’s plans to reform Ireland’s defamation laws, the Circuit Court would be able to make the so-called Norwich Pharmacal order to direct tech companies to provide the details.
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This is to be included in an amendment to the Bill and should result in reduced legal costs for people who believe they have been defamed online.
Speaking about his own experience Mr Martin said “it did strike me as extraordinarily challenging for individual citizens to seek the identity of such online defamers”.
Mr Martin last year took a High Court action against Google seeking information about the people behind fake adverts relating to cryptocurrency that used his image and appeared on legitimate websites.
Google did not oppose the order and subsequently provided information.
Mr Martin said: “The fake ads seem to have originated from jurisdictions in Belarus and Russia”. He added: “It seems that stolen credit cards were used to pay for the ads.”
He also said: “Notwithstanding the fact that we’ve received a High Court order I’ve written again to Google in respect to the ads that appeared on Google to get further clarity on the steps it now intends to take because there seems to be a model of revenue generation here that’s unacceptable.”
Mr Martin said: “We’ve had great difficulty in identifying the people who actually paid for the ads, notwithstanding having secured a High Court order.”
He said that Google co-operated with the High Court Order and “we received an enormous amount of documentation” and people had to be employed to forensically go through to try to identify who paid for the fake ads.
Asked if he felt his criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had anything to do with him being targeted, he replied: “I don’t know” and he “can’t make definitive comments in respect of that”.
Separately, Mr Martin was again the subject of fake adverts on the X social media platform which ran in the run up to the family and care referendums earlier this year.
Mr Martin said: “We’ve had far less co-operation from X who had a whole series of fake ads in respect of my good self and others ... in advance of the referendum.”
Google declined to comment on the matter.
The Irish Times has attempted to contact X for comment.
The Defamation (Amendment) Bill is to go before the Oireachtas in the Autumn.
The plan to abolish juries for High Court defamation actions is a key measure designed to reduce the likelihood of disproportionate awards of damages.
NewsBrands, a representative body for Irish news publishers, has welcomed the Bill with its chief executive Ann Marie Lenihan saying the reforms “will lead to reduced costs for news publishers, costs which were threatening the very viability of investigative journalism and having a chilling effect on the reporting of matters in the public interest.”
She expressed disappointment that NewsBrands’ recommendation that there be a “serious harm test” was not included in the Bill and urged reconsideration.
Such a test – previously introduced in England and Wales – would require claimants to prove at the outset of a case that the alleged defamation was likely to cause serious harm to their reputation.
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