Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I will push back on some of the assertions made by Mr. Herrick and Dr. McIntyre. We have accepted that the era of self-regulation by the technology companies is over and I get the point about criminal activity. Part of our responsibility as legislators, however, is to deal with the very real challenges around online bullying and harassment, and the real harm caused by these. We have heard from witnesses about such harm and concerns. We could certainly wait for the Digital Services Act but that will take some time before it is adopted. Dr. McIntyre outlined how quickly that is happening. Nevertheless, we have a responsibility as legislators to deal right now with the problems of online harm. I accept entirely that it is not going to be solved just with the creation of an office of an online safety commissioner. There is a requirement around education, and this is a reflection of broader matters in society.

We have a responsibility nonetheless to be able to address some of the behaviour online and we know Twitter, Facebook and many other social media giants are not doing this. I am open to the idea of a social media council and perhaps the witnesses could expand on that. Facebook introduced an oversight board and again there is a question mark because Facebook appointed its members and I do not view it as independent. I appreciate all the problems we are seeing but how, in the immediate term, can we solve all those challenges?

I referred earlier to the human rights commission and I have a question on algorithmic decision-making. We want to see audits carried out in the area but do the witnesses have a view on it?