Dublin City Council has over 50 accounts on X, and pays for some
Dublin City Council (DCC) says it currently has around 50 accounts on the X social media platform, and pays annual fees for four of them.
A council spokesperson confirmed that there were 20 active accounts directly operated by the body on the controversial social network, which includes official accounts such as the Lord Mayor’s X account and the Dublin Fire Brigade.
The full list of council accounts provided by the body is:
Of these, DCC pays annual fees for four of the accounts, at a cost of between €84 and €395 each, to either X or a third party “for facilities including analytics, longer-form content, video capabilities and reply prioritisation”.
On top of the 20 accounts above, the council said approximately 30 further DCC-affiliated accounts are currently the subject of an ongoing exercise to consolidate its social media presence.
This, it said, would “support the coherent, streamlined identity and tone of voice of the council”.
It is not immediately clear which accounts make up the additional 30, but the Irish Independent found several accounts not listed above which are linked to the council, such as the Bram Stoker Festival account, which is funded by the council through a tender process.
A spokesperson for DCC said the council did not consider the Bram Stoker Festival account to be on the list of 30 accounts linked to the council, despite its full name being the ‘Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival’.
This is because it is an event managed by an external events company, they said.
In tender documents issued by the council for the festival, it is suggested that social media campaigns would be an effective method to promote the events, but they do not specifically mention X, or Twitter, as it was previously known.
Other X accounts affiliated with the council include one for Dublin City Council BETA, which the spokesperson said was likely not part of the 30 additional accounts either, 14 Henrietta Street, DCC City Architects and Dublin Festival of History, amongst others.
DCC said it would be reviewing its social media presence in the first quarter of the year “to ensure that the platforms we use, and our use of them, align with and support the city council’s values and brand”.
It follows an emergency motion from six Green Party councillors, to be discussed by the authority’s Protocol Committee, that called on the council to stop using the platform “immediately in all council sectors”.
"Grok, the AI chatbot of X that was relentlessly pushed out by Elon Musk, has been violating individual rights whilst potentially breaching laws governing child safety and harassment communications,” it read.
The platform, they said, had become “a vehicle for abuse, and the promotion of far-right, racist and divisive politics" and its Grok artificial intelligence tool was being used to “nudify images of women and minors”.
"This feature allows the creation of child sexual abuse material and images of sexual harassment.”
It comes as pressure grows on the Government over Grok, amid claims that 6,700 nudified images are being generated every hour by users of the chatbot.