Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh gach duine. I will focus on the legislation we are considering. What do the witnesses see as the primary roles of the new media commission that we are going to set up? Do they see it as becoming a regulator? Do they believe it will also have a role in education and in supporting content creation?

My next question relates to the commission's third thematic dialogue around dealing with misinformation and disinformation. Dr. Scott Ruston of Arizona State University has raised the question of transparency in the use of algorithms by social media companies. This is particularly important. We want to see a code around algorithmic decision-making and how algorithms are used to feed misinformation and disinformation. I am interested to hear the witnesses' views on how we should tie that into legislation or the development of codes by the new commission.

I will put a direct question to Professor MacCraith which is related to the misinformation and disinformation issue. He has headed up the very successful vaccination programme on behalf of the Government, and I think everyone is very appreciative of that. There was concern about the spreading of disinformation and fake news about the Covid-19 vaccine. What lessons can we learn from what we have seen over the last year? In particular, how would the new commission deal in such circumstances with the need to get very important information to people? When I raised the role of social media companies in tackling disinformation around Covid in the Seanad, I experienced a bit of abuse as a result. Ireland has been very lucky that we had such a high take-up level of the vaccine but there are important lessons that are there to be learned.