Paddy Cosgrave’s undoing exposes Web Summit’s glaring contradictions

The resignation this week of Web Summit chief executive Paddy Cosgrave somehow managed to be both startling and utterly predictable at the same time, not unlike Cosgrave himself.

He’s always been an energetic creative dynamo with a contrarian bent. Credit where credit is due: a restless thinker and instigator, he managed to turn a modest idea – staging a few occasional talks in Dublin by some interesting Silicon Valley tech industry insiders – into the global success of the mammoth annual Web Summit and its spin-offs, an extraordinary achievement.

But the same relentless Cosgrave drive that could re-envision how a big tech event might be run, who it might feature, the topics it might touch upon and the audience it might appeal to, also relished engaging in public disputes that regularly drifted into tirades, generally on Twitter/X, which were at best ill-conceived and at worst – well, we’ve arguably just seen what qualifies as “at worst”

Over the past couple of weeks, Cosgrave made comments on social media about the Israel/Hamas conflict, criticising “the rhetoric and actions of so many Western leaders and governments”. That fuelled a backlash, leading to a slow leak of high-profile industry and celebrity speakers, then companies including Intel, Google and Meta, from the event.

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Cosgrave apologised on social media, but followed up defensively, indirectly suggesting that his comments had not really affected other aspects of attendance, which made his apology appear insincere. The departures began, and once big sponsors Google and Meta walked, Cosgrave’s resignation followed.

And yet, hypocrisies and contradictions abound. Cosgrave regularly airs his opinions, and his views are often controversial. Sometimes his words have caused offence, even fury – he’s tailor-made for the brash, pugnacious social media age. Irish Twitter/X has regular “oh no, what has Paddy said now?” discussion threads. Sometimes, the more outrageous posts vanish.

[ For the love of God, don’t make me defend Paddy Cosgrave ]

But none of this behaviour, or Cosgrave’s years of verbal fisticuffs with venues, event suppliers, city officials, politicians or, more recently, bitter legal rows with former business partners seems to have overly concerned or offended sponsors or speakers. Of course, the recent posts that precipitated the apology, then resignation, were poorly worded. Legitimate human rights concerns could have been expressed more productively and sympathetically. But a common refrain from people I’ve talked to is surprise that sponsors and big name attendees never reacted to Cosgrave’s views and social media-disbursed opinions previously.

How Paddy Cosgrave lost his grip on Web Summit

Listen | 20:21

Web Summit co-founder and now ex-CEO Paddy Cosgrave was accustomed to speaking his mind. It never really did him, or his business, any harm, until his remarks about Israel annoyed too many of the wrong people. Now he's out. Can the company he built survive?

And on the other side, watching the former Web Summit chief executive condemning governments and leaders on human rights and ethical grounds, while running a huge technology event filled with so many of the companies and technologies that enable serious, sometimes appalling, human and civil rights abuses, smacks of hypocrisy.

Take Google and Meta, big Web Summit sponsors that backed out of this year’s event over Cosgrave’s comments. Both have been the subject of a wide range of criticism and complaint by human, civil and digital rights activists. Google has compliantly censored search results and removed pro-democracy voting apps in oppressive countries. It holds, and lucratively exploits, a trove of the most sensitive information on hundreds of millions of people, thanks to years of search, maps, advertising and other data gathered by its many arms.

Meta’s tarnished human rights reputation is well documented by whistleblowers, internal documents, human rights defenders and civil and digital rights activists. A 2022 Amnesty report found that Meta “proactively amplified and promoted” hate speech that contributed to a violent and bloody backlash against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Whistleblower Frances Haugen has spoken and provided evidence of the company’s past disregard for vulnerable communities, and the dissolution of specialised teams that once countered dangerous activity on the platform.

[ ‘Tech superpower’ Ireland should take on social media giants, Frances Haugen says ]

Her first public appearance after leaking the so-called Facebook Files was, wait for it, at Web Summit in 2021. But all that evidence didn’t add up to refusing Meta’s money as a sponsor.

Nor has Qatar’s woeful reputation on human rights deterred Web Summit from holding a Qatari version of the event this February, confirmed by Cosgrave after his resignation. Even though the country figures on the watch lists of several global human rights organisations, it apparently passes muster with Cosgrave and the Web Summit organisers.

Set against this is Cosgrave’s past generosity in giving free stage space to a number of digital human and civil rights organisations at Dublin Web Summits (I don’t know if this continued at the Lisbon incarnations).

I was involved in moderating some of those sessions and got to know a number of human rights defenders who have been to the forefront of teaching vulnerable populations how to protect their digital privacy and stay safe online – which can mean, staying alive – in their areas of the world.

But they were always on a small and distant stage, obscure against the sessions at which Web Summit attendees thrilled to speakers from the very companies the human rights advocates struggled against, and were ignored by.

Maybe it’s just easier to accept the industry’s money, luxuriate in big tech’s tinsel glamour and ignore such contradictions. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.