Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 1 August 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Moderation of Violent and Harmful Content on the Facebook Platform: Discussion

12:00 pm

Ms Niamh Sweeney:

I am not familiar with the details of that court case but I accept he undoubtedly had a difficult time.

On the numbers and level of diverse activity and whether we think it is possible to control it, one point we have not made yet is that the vast majority of people who use our service do not use it in the way we are discussing today but rather use the service to connect with friends and family or to stay in touch with local politicians or businesses. They do not encounter much of the material that we are discussing. I would love to carry out a quick poll of the people in this room to find out who uses Facebook. How many use Facebook because of the shocking content on it or because there are other useful reasons to use it? I will not put anyone on the spot but it is important to note, as part of the wider conversation, that the ordinary experience a user would have on Facebook does not generate millions of reports. Many millions of reports are generated about the other kinds of content we are discussing but I do not want those present to leave this meeting today thinking that two billion people have a problem every day and that we are dealing with the reports generated from those two billion people.

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