There have been global concerns about X since Mr Musk bought it out in October 2022, and the manner it has allowed content to become more disinformative, aggressive, ugly, and odious under his control.

The fact, too, that Mr Musk seemingly has an increasingly bullying demeanour towards individuals, business opponents, and even countries, is also a worry.

A watering down of X’s own rules has allowed in recent months — and with particular effect in terms of the war in Gaza, where we have seen staggering amounts of misinformation allowed go unchecked — a massive acceleration of mistrust, which has done nothing to prevent the ongoing massacre of innocents.

On a much lesser scale, the platform’s inactivity during November’s Dublin riots was an insidious indication of the damage that can be done by allowing untrammelled access to unpoliced social media. The concerns of this country’s top two political leaders must now be translated into a coherent and workable plan to stop X, or any other social media platform, from allowing the sort of unsavoury, provocative content we saw during the Dublin riots.

Any argument that such a move would be contrary to the tenets of free speech must be seen for what it is — pure tosh. 

The world goes to the polls

A record-breaking 40 countries, with more than 40% of the global population and a rather large chunk of global gross domestic production (GDP), are to hold elections in the coming year. These range from India to the US and from Russia to South Africa, so controversy will never be far from the headlines.

Sadly, in all too many of these countries the outcome will be a vote on the viability of democracy, or be a ballot that will either embolden right-wing agitators or, worse, nascent dictators.

Some of the elections will be free, fair, and open to scrutiny, but, sadly, many more will be pre-cooked and have a predictable outcome. A gamut of vote-fests will determine whose hands are on the levers of global power at a very troubled time.

Global freedoms have declined for the 17th consecutive year, according to the US-based independent watchdog Freedom House, so the ballots being cast in classic and established liberal democracies, such as the US and the UK, and in wealthy and growing economies with febrile political landscapes, such as India, will be defining.

Then there are the despotic regimes in Russia, China, and Iran, the weakest and troubled governments in South Sudan, and Venezuela, and the most-stressed ones in Ukraine and Taiwan.

The problem is that in our technological world, free speech — an essential element of any open democracy — is consistently under threat. It is a sad situation when functioning democracies have had to protect themselves with stringent online restrictions, but that’s the way of it in this third decade of the 21st century.

But that’s better than in Iran, where, ahead of parliamentary elections in March, some 25% of opposition candidates have already been disqualified. Earlier this month, former Egyptian coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi banned his only credible opponent from taking part in the presidential election, which he then easily won.

Russia will hold the most potentially bogus election of the lot. President Putin has jailed, exiled, or eliminated all credible opposition ahead of his bid for a fifth term and just this week his main rival, Alexi Navalny, turned up in a remote Arctic penal colony after ‘disappearing’ for several weeks.

In electoral terms, we can but hope that 2024 does not go down in infamy.

A well-deserved bonus

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary will shortly pick up a bonus of €100m. Does he deserve it?

While it is arguable that no company executive deserves a huge payout for simply doing their job of expanding returns for investors and building the company they run, Ryanair is within a hair of achieving a record annual profit and within sniffing distance of the €2.2bn of net profit that will give O’Leary his bonus.

In his case, it is also possible to conclude that he doesn’t need the money — his Ryanair stake alone is currently worth some €800m — but it is also worth pointing out that no boss has had more impact on ordinary lives across Europe.

He has democratised flying like no other and while his public persona has annoyed many, he has arguably become one of the most successful company bosses ever seen. Many might posit that O’Leary’s Ryanair model has made it good to fly passengers to airports miles from where they actually want to go and charge for things that should come free. 

On the other hand, the airline never needed a bailout during the pandemic and it has been one of the few to comfortably exceed capacity levels.

In many ways O’Leary has done more to achieve European integration than any other and if he does get his massive bonus then, for that achievement alone, nobody should quibble about it.