{"id":79508,"date":"2025-09-22T21:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T21:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79508\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T21:01:08","slug":"jim-gavin-hits-out-at-malicious-online-abuse-against-his-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79508\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Gavin hits out at ‘malicious’ online abuse against his family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il presidential election<\/a> candidate Jim Gavin has hit out at \u201conline abuse and malicious smears\u201d about him and his family on social media in recent days.<\/p>\n

Some of the online statements about the former Dublin GAA manager have been \u201cslanderous\u201d and resulted in an \u201cawful week\u201d for Mr Gavin and his family, sources have said.<\/p>\n

It is now believed that the claims, which cannot be repeated due to defamation laws, are being spread by a \u201chard right\u201d agitator with links to another political party who has multiple online accounts.<\/p>\n

Meta has taken down some of the posts from Facebook and Instagram following legal letters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TikTok, X, and Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n have yet to respond.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Mr Gavin said that he felt the need to call out the misinformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery person in our country knows the real and growing threat posed by online hate and disinformation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of the forces driving the growing division and conflict in many societies. It is the cause of mental health issues amongst our young people due to online bullying and harassment.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen this in recent weeks, where the Ceann Comhairle [Verona Murphy] felt it necessary to convene discussions on confronting abuse and threats towards political figures<\/a>, and it’s something every parent confronts when trying to ensure that their children are safe online.<\/p>\n

“I refuse to accept that the price of participating in public life should involve having to put your family and friends through waves of online abuse and malicious smears. This is not the cost of service\u00a0\u2014 it is a failure of our digital culture.<\/p>\n

“I will continue to take whatever action is necessary to confront this appalling feature of social media. We all need to call it out for what it is: totally unacceptable. Social media companies must do far more to protect people from such nasty and destructive behaviour online.”<\/p>\n

Sources told the Irish Examiner that it has been an \u201cawful week\u201d for Mr Gavin and his family and that while he is a \u201cmeasured person\u201d, he is \u201creally worried about the impact on his family and his friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is being examined whether a \u201chard right\u201d agitator with links to another political party was behind the original post. It is believed they have \u201cmultiple aliases\u201d, and it is \u201chard to keep up with the spin-off posts\u201d. Additional posts were removed from the internet as recently as Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cJim\u2019s feeling on it all is that he is not going to leave it lie.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wants to stand up against these social media companies, not just for his family, but he feels that this is bigger than him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il presidential election candidate Jim Gavin has hit out at \u201conline abuse and malicious smears\u201d about him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1109,5,53453,59,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-79508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-media","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-person-jim-gavin","23":"tag-presidential-election","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}