Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all our guests. This Bill concerns the regulation of all media. The main thing I noted in our guests' opening statements was that they touched a lot on advertising and their business models. Advertising and its regulation can be as prominent in terms of online harm. The Press Ombudsman, Mr. Peter Feeney, stated that social media is sucking away the resources from newspapers and traditional media as sites such as Facebook draw readers' attention to a newspaper story that is read online. The newspaper receives no revenue from the reader but Facebook receives the online review. I agree with the ombudsman's view. Traditional newspapers that do all the news reporting and employ journalists saw their advertising revenues fall through the floor last year because of the pandemic. Advertising revenues have fallen by over €300 million for the national titles in this country, from a high in 2007 of approximately €375 million to approximately €60 million last year. Google and Facebook secured advertising revenue of €425 million in this space in 2019. How much did the platforms each of our guests represent receive in advertising revenue last year? Do they agree with a system whereby the social media companies pay the print and television companies for monetising their news content that is posted to the social media platforms? If social media suck the life out of traditional media, as the ombudsman stated in his report published last year during the pandemic, the sanity, calmness and objectivity of traditional media will be gone and a wasteland will be left behind.

On the issue of advertising and harmful online content, I agree with Professor Conor O'Mahony, the children's affairs special rapporteur, who said this Bill does not go far enough in tackling the meaning of "online harm" in particular areas such as online gambling. A serious amount of money is spent online by gambling companies on different platforms. Ms Tanya Ward from the Children's Alliance has spoken about the harm of online advertising by cosmetics companies. Do any of the companies our guests represent target marketing to children under 16? Would they agree with a code that bans advertising targeted at under 16s? Can we start with the representative of Facebook on those four questions and can I get a concise answer to each of my questions?