Launched on May 8th, a “portal” of communication opened up in New York and Dublin. It is a technology-based tool to learn and communicate with those across the world, and is based next to the Flatiron building in New York and between North Earl Street and O’Connell Street in Dublin. 

No less than a week after the installation and access to the public, the technology was taken for granted. People were getting flashed, doing inappropriate actions to the portal, and even showing New Yorkers pictures of the 9/11 attack. It has been temporarily shut down due to viral videos of the misconduct online though there were very few out of line.

“While we cannot control all of these actions, we are implementing some technical solutions to address this and these will go live in the next 24 hours,” the council said in a Monday statement. They also stated to closely monitor the portals as it should be a positive experience.

On a positive note, The Dublin City Council said in a press release that their portal is also linked to other places such as Lithuania, Poland, and Brazil. Although there were many unfortunate recordings and uses of the portal, many were wholesome. There were old meetups and even a proposal which were all documented and many got to experience it. Overall, the technology was implemented as a tool to learn about other cultures and experience new people; in a way, it did just that.