Ms Niamh Sweeney:

As Ms Cummiskey is our content and policies expert, I will hand over to her at times. On the first question regarding the news that emerged yesterday about co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour, we have reported the matter to the FBI. We shared the information with it and Congress before the news emerged yesterday. We subsequently deleted all of the accounts involved once the authorities had had an opportunity to get a handle on what was involved. We have talked a little about this before, particularly in the context of the referendum because we deployed the same artificial intelligence here for the referendum as has been used in the identification of many of these accounts. I use the term "co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour", which, while mouthy, best captures how it works. In terms of what was identified with the Internet Research Agency, as it was known, it was not so much that the content they were sharing violated but that they were not who they said they were. Often when accounts are operating at scale like this, multiple accounts are created at the same, sharing the same content at the same time, and these are the types of triggers that our system is built to detect. Once some of those clues were offered up, it was possible to connect the content to some of the accounts involved in the Internet Research Agency. A lengthy blog post was published yesterday in which we set out what we found and how we find it. It provides more detail which I hope will be helpful.

On the point of regulation, we accept the need for greater regulation in this area. Many countries have struggled to get to grips with content regulation and the regulation of political campaigning online and so on. We are keen to continue to engage with the committee, in particular on the Bills presented by Deputies Lawless and Ó Laoghaire. We are to happy to engage with the committee in that regard. I thank the Chairman for the information that the detailed scrutiny process is scheduled for the autumn.

Deputy Dooley is correct that this was a clear betrayal of our standards. Ms Cummiskey has not yet had an opportunity to comment but I would like to set out her background for the committee. She is a human rights lawyer who has worked in Ireland and abroad. She spent a lot of time with the Irish Traveller movement and she was involved in the prosecution of the first ever hate speech case in Ireland. This is all deeply upsetting for her and her team because they are not just people who have been hired to do a job and who get to grips with the policies, they have a history and depth of experience that even I do not have, which is the reason they get hired for these roles.

On the point regarding Mr. Andrew Bosworth's statement, many of us would like to go back and hit delete such that it would never have been posted. As stated by my colleague, Mr. Joe Kaplan, on the previous occasion, Mr. Bosworth's views as expressed in that post do not represent the views of the company. We would never stand over them and the matter was taken up with Mr. Bosworth at the highest level by Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. Mr. Bosworth, or Boz as he is known within the company, has a reputation for posting provocative material to get a conversation going. This is my understanding of what happened in this instance. The post is still live and still has comments. Ms Cummiskey, I and others have weighed in multiple times over the years since it was first posted to express our disgust with the notion. I do not think it represents Mr. Andrew Bosworth's views but I can understand why the issue was raised here today. It is a difficult one for us to talk about but I can assure the committee that his views do not represent the company's views.

On the question regarding the 7,500 reviewers and the four clinical psychologists, there are four clinical psychologists who devise our wellness and resiliency programmes that are deployed across all of our centres globally. There are other mental health staff who are located in each centre. There are nine located in the CPL office in Dublin.

The answer is I do not think four is enough. They just devise the wider programmes and staff are on site to deliver wellness classes and one-to-one counselling. They also advise staff on how to access resources when they need them. Deputy Stanley's questions are probably more in Ms Cummiskey's area but perhaps she could add to the replies to the Chair's questions.