Liz Carolan
@lizcarolan
I publish thebriefing.ie, & founded organisations working on tech & democracy. Tech Policy Press fellow. Political scientist, advocate, writer, knitter. DMs open
This comment on a LinkedIn post about my piece on Friday about the horrific M9 crash really bothered me - I know better than to reply but I didn’t want to leave it unanswered and I thought to myself “hey, this isn’t Twitter“…
i just made my annual 3 min phone call to Eir that saves me €180 per year ”My deal is expiring, can you put me on the best plan?” And it’s €15/ month for unlimited everything
I mean, this is true, but also the most insane interpretation of free speech (which is saying something)
I wonder how much this fella had to donate to get his name on the library? That’s how it’s always worked, right?
I’ll be doing the Sunday papers later this morning on @rteone.rte.ie with Brendan OConnor; excited to meet my fellow panelists @brigidlaffan.bsky.social, @mickcliff.bsky.social & David Higgins
Also - my one and only parenting hack - freeze their toys and make them work to get them out. Buys a good 30 mins. A friend suggested doing this with a Lego set which is just next level genius
I wrote in the @irishtimes.com about the completely illogical maths of parenting while working in summer time. Nothing has changed! www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...
My childcare this morning is paddling pool - welcome to summer ☀️ Camps kick in next week, and I have thoughts on this I shared them in the paper last year - securing my one and only invite onto the air with Oliver Callan - listen back here - or play spot the sun hat www.rte.ie/radio/podcas...
Some good news - actual consequences for consistently failing to file required documents
It’s been over a year since we got our cargo bike, and 1,500 km later it’s one of the best decisions we’ve made 🚲 Special mention to @rotharphibsboro.bsky.social for just excellent service, including helping us with with a part issue today ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ll be on @rteradio1.bsky.social shortly talking surveillance in the AI era, and why you should think about before posting photos of yourself - like this one - online
I don't mean to be a pedant, but the Irish Gov published it policy programme for the EU Presidency, which starts in a few weeks, and the words "priority" and "prioritise" appear 94 times If everything is a priority, then surely nothing actually is?
The longer I spend in tech policy, the stronger the urge to grow real things
To watch the official YouTube video for the Papal AI encyclical on the official Vatican page I had to first watch an AI generated video ad on "Belly fat after 50"
I'm going deep on the papal encyclical and it is doing all sorts of things to my algorithms
Remember when we used to be able to navigate the internet with a working search engine?
I note the highest vote for Hutch in the "Mountjoy A" electoral division
I‘ve an opinion piece in the paper about the TTPA - new EU political transparency rules that *could* transform our election coverage & protect democracy But we need really simple solutions put in place to make it workable for parties & journalists www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...
The Dublin Central ad spend this time round is even starker - 95% of spend across 8 parties is on paper; posters (46.7%) or leaflets (47.7%)
Here's the breakdown across categories of ads in Galway - it doesn't even make the chart but the one digital ad I found across both by-election was in Galway, for €799 (details in the piece) That is 0.35% of by-election ads. Digital is normally 15-20% of an Irish election
Here is what the parties are spending on advertising (posters, leaflets, car wraps, bus shelter ads, canvassing jackets) for the by-election Comes to over €225k - so far (data scraped May 12th; 10 days out from polling day)
So all parties have to declare their (larger) donations annually to SIPO - "The Irish People" said they had none to declare last year (and I can't find one for 2024) www.sipo.ie/en/collectio...
Once I have the party data I will be moving on to the independents! The requirements are both super specific and very vague, and this is the first time its being done so it is very all over the place Here are two examples (also not it is not just digital ads but any political advertising)