Digital Society: Life Online in the Shadow of Ireland’s Tech Boom

In her address, Aoife Barry discusses her book Social Capital: Life Online in the Shadow of Ireland's Tech Boom, which focuses on what she discovered while interviewing people in Ireland about their online behaviour and how they have been treated online, and what this illustrates about the regulatory and legal challenges facing both social media users and tech owners. Aoife discusses how developments since the book’s publication demonstrate how issues around social media and misinformation have only grown, pointing to an uncertain and troubling future for the internet. About the Speaker: Aoife Barry is a freelance journalist and broadcaster. Her essays and fiction have been published by Banshee journal, ThiWurd, and Visual Verse, and broadcast on RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany. Her bylines include The Sunday Times, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, the Business Post, The Journal and the Irish Examiner. Aoife features regularly on RTÉ and Today FM and has received Agility Award Funding from the Arts Council for a novel in progress and was selected by the Irish Writers Centre for its Evolution Programme 2023.