Changes will be made to the way the 'Portal' installation in Dublin is operating due to the "inappropriate behaviour" of some of those who are using it, Dublin City Council has said.
The "technical solutions" will go live in the next 24 hours, the council said, adding that it will continue to monitor the use of the art installation which connects Dublin and New York via a live visual link.
The council said a very small minority of people had been engaged in the inappropriate behaviour at the portal which is located between O’Connell Street and North Earl Street in Dublin city centre and that it had been "amplified through social media".
"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. We will continue to monitor the situation over the coming days with our partners in New York to ensure that Portals continue to deliver a positive experience for both cities and the world."
Dublin City Council has not specified what technical changes will be made.
Reports in the New York Post newspaper said that viewers in the US had seen people in Dublin exposing body parts, making inappropriate gestures and holding up footage of 9/11 since the installation opened last week.
The two portals form part of a public art project aiming to unite citizens via technology on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The New York portal is located on the Flatiron South Public Plaza at Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street, one of the Big Apple's most dynamic intersections.
Dublin City Council said there had been increased footfall in the area since the project was launched and that there have been hundreds of millions of positive impressions on social media along with positive global international media coverage.
"The overwhelming majority of interactions are positive. We have seen families and friends unite, dancing moves being shared as well as new friendships being made. There was even a successful marriage proposal. The Portal offers a window to other cities and is connecting people and cultures in a unique manner - what we are seeing between Dublin and NY is reflective of a wider narrative of cultural behaviour.
"The Portal is for the public to use and we encourage people to enjoy it, interact with it and to continue to meet and say hello to people outside of their social circles and cultures."
In a statement the Lithuanian based company behind the installation, Portals Organization, said: "As Portals Organization, we do not intend to suggest people to interact with Portals in any particular way - our goal is to open a window between far away places and cultures that allows people to interact freely with one another. We encourage people to be respectful and from our position as observers, we see that the absolute majority of experiences is on the bright side."
The video suffered an interruption this morning due to a "technical glitch" in the software, the operator of the installation said.
The feed has resumed but Portals.org said its technical team was looking into the cause of the outage to improve the stability of the feed moving forward.
Additional reporting Marc O'Driscoll
