Ms Frances Haugen:

I have been very heartened by the progress with the European Union's Digital Services Act because it focuses on systems and processes that can be extended into the future. My concern in regard to Ireland's Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 is that it strongly focuses on content, that is, what content should be illegal, what type of content should be taken down and so on. As stated by the Senator, we are having conversations about 2D screens when Facebook-Meta is trying to shift the conversation to this immersive metaverse video game kind of world. What the Digital Services Act does well is that it focuses on risk assessments and the idea that what we need to do here is figure out how to close the feedback loop. Currently, nobody but Facebook can see behind the curtain of its business. Academics cannot study it and citizens cannot see more than their individual experience. At present, there is no feedback loop whereby if something goes wrong on Facebook, anyone other than Facebook can observe it or suggest corrections. The Digital Services Act's risk assessments close that circle. It states that companies need to start disclosing what the risks are and they also need to be able to listen to concerns from NGOs and Governments and to state what those mitigations are going to be and have them assessed by an independent party. A feedback loop would allow us to begin to shift the process and the way in which these systems work from being optimised for growth and profit to something that is more in the public good.

The Senator spoke of the idea that individuals needed to be the solution. That is not expansive enough to be able to help society in the way it needs to be helped. I cannot overemphasise how addictive these products are. Facebook's documents demonstrate that some of the most vulnerable people in our societies are the ones who get sucked the furthest down the rabbit hole. Some of the characteristics that put people most at risk to being hyper-exposed to misinformation include the recent death of a spouse, being recently widowed, a move to a new city or the person being recently divorced. It is the idea that when people are feeling the most vulnerable, they turn to this quick social fix, they turn to the online community instead of the in-person community. The idea that individuals are the solution and they should boycott it is really dangerous. It risks us leaving behind those who most need our care and need to be reintegrated into the community.