Ms Kathryn Walsh:

I will respond to the some of the Senator's initial comments on broadcasting regulations. The BAI did a review of the general children’s commercial communications code - that is quite a mouthful. It was laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas earlier this year. There are some viewership figures in it for broadcasting. I have some of headline figures. Between 2011 and 2018 there was a 60% drop in 30 second TV ratings for four to 17 years olds. Children are seeing fewer advertisements on television. The BAI stated it will not update the review until such time as a media commission has been established. There has been so much migration of advertising to online media that one cannot be considered without considering the other. That was a very comprehensive review. It examined what was happening in other jurisdictions. I recommend that the committee looks at it. However, there are no such viewership figures for online programming. I do not have access to them. In terms of TV exposure online, younger age groups are not seeing as many television ratings, TVRs, but there has been an increase in advertising spots. I am not sure of the language used on that. We cannot drop the ball on broadcasting. The current regulations provide a watershed up to 6 p.m., but children and young people watch many television programmes between 6 p.m and 9 p.m. Family programmes, popular singing shows, skating shows and family movies are all broadcast within that period. We cannot drop the ball on regulation either. That needs to be carried through. We also need to consider the make-up of audience profiles within that programming period and not only at programming targeted at children but programming that children realistically see.

The Senator referenced the repeal campaign. It is possible for these social media companies to implement these bans. Some of these companies curate a list of topics that they think one is interested in, they show it to the person and allow them to turn off different advertisements if they want. The same is true for other advertisements. That should be the default if the person is an adult. The capacity is there to do these things. A person I know who works in the tech industry used an analogy to illustrate these companies' capabilities, which I will share with the committee. If they can have AI examining images to get text descriptions for blind people and they can build a prototype censorship system for the Chinese, they can stop showing harmful ads to children. They have the technical expertise and can do it; it is just a matter of will and due diligence.