Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 May 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Online Content Moderation and Reactivation of Economy: Discussion

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her question and for introducing the content moderators to me because it was very interesting to hear what they had to say. I think we all agree that they do a very difficult job. Some of the work they do can be done through artificial intelligence and algorithms but only a small amount of it. I am not a tech person but I suspect that for the foreseeable future we will need a lot of this work to be done by a human being and a human brain. Of course, behind a human brain are human emotions. We need people who will police the Internet and take content down. We all see the stuff that gets through so we can only imagine the stuff that does not get through, what it is like and the impact it may have on people. The Deputy will be aware that I wrote to Facebook about this. It replied. I have not met representatives of the company in recent months but this matter will be on the agenda the next time I meet them and I will take an interest in it. The HSA has its role and will carry out its functions as it should.

To answer Deputy O'Reilly's question, my sense is that if people being outsourced to a company or a contractor are doing the same work as the directly employed people within that company, such as Facebook, they should get the same psychological supports and backup as the directly employed workers. Now, maybe they are doing different work, but if they are doing the same work, they should get the same psychological and well-being supports. Like many members of the committee, I think, I am not against outsourcing. The Government does it all the time. Departments do it all the time, and very successfully. However, it should not be done by an employer as a means of avoiding obligations or potential legal liabilities. That is all I will say about that.

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