Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and acknowledge that a private organisation has given time to come in here. Most of the points I wanted to raise have been raised. I have met Facebook and been taken through its anti-bullying policy and protection. I want simply to make a statement. This is an evolving new industry in which everyone is learning, particularly the employees at Facebook. We do not have any benchmark because social media is only ten years old, has ballooned in a matter of 18 months or two years and we are trying to catch up with it. It influences behaviour, negative as well as positive.

I love social media. It has brought a phenomenal benefit to people. I have seen many community groups using Facebook for lip synchs and "Strictly Come Dancing" and fair day notifications. I was at a fair last week having got the notification on Facebook. It is a tool that people can use free of charge. There is advertising involved but that is an opt-in free of charge. To go back to basics, I am the director of a crèche. We have advertised all our fundraising activities and meetings on Facebook. It has many positive aspects. The negatives are magnified because of their results. As a culture and a country we are grappling with how social media is starting to fragment as it matures. Some social media brands attract a certain cohort. Facebook is different because it has a broad cohort, but that will get narrower as competition grows.

It is for Facebook to take on board what has been said at this committee meeting. The witnesses mentioned artificial intelligence and the use of algorithms in trying to block the most extreme things that arise on Facebook live, through videos or in respect of self-harm or heinous crime. I understand complaints are sent to the team which has to monitor it, make a decision and act on it.

It takes more time to research the subtle material, and that probably needs more human interaction to decide something is bullying as opposed to free speech and who the stakeholders and the victims are. Can the research and development team work on algorithms to catch the extreme cases that Senator Noone mentioned the minute they go up, pop them into a filter and then adjudicate on it? It could use artificial intelligence because the algorithm learns as it goes on.

I am happy Facebook has chosen Ireland as its European headquarters because of the number of jobs it provides. It is a learning organisation and the average employee would be more focused on youth culture. I only know about the algorithms through talking to people who work there and are interested.

We invited the witnesses here not to discuss our personal situations but to talk about children and youth affairs. It might be helpful if the committee could produce a report based on this meeting to send action points to social media providers, including Snapchat, Twitter and other platforms. Young people are moving to other platforms because they do not want their grannies or their mothers seeing what they are doing.