James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions and attendance. I have two questions which I will tie together and try to keep as brief as possible. The first relates to an incident from social media yesterday. As we know, the British general election is under way and we miss the presence of our British colleagues, with the exception of Lord Puttnam who is with us. The official Twitter account of the Conservative Party sent out a tweet with a mock-up of the Opposition Brexit spokesperson, Keir Starmer, poised to answer a question he was not asked. This is possibly the first time the headquarters of a mainstream political party has run fake news. We have seen this from many fringe actors but this is probably the first time I have seen a mainstream party officially engaging in fake news. It is probably no surprise because the main protagonist in that party is on the vote leave side.

Have we reached peak social media difficulty? The flipside of that question is that, as legislators, we have to anticipate the counter-arguments and play devil's advocate to some extent. With every new technology, from Gutenberg's printing press to the Pony Express when riders crossed the United States on horseback delivering telegrams, come those who will exploit these technologies. We were discussing this issue last night. Regulators and legislators have always tried to clamp down and sometimes it takes a while to get on board. Sometimes the public get on board faster and apply their own filter by taking fake news or, previously, a bogus telegram with a grain of salt. I fervently believe legislation and regulation are needed. To what extent have we reached a peak? Are people moving off the platforms already or will they remain an ongoing threat for some time?