Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I might have to listen back to the witnesses' replies to my questions. I thank them for attending. Their opening statements were comprehensive. We all know the Electoral Commission, Coimisiún na Meán, the Digital Services Act and forthcoming legislation are necessary tools to deal with the world in which we live. We all know the issues involved, be that possible Russian involvement in the election of Donald Trump or what happened with Cambridge Analytica and targeting in the course of the Brexit campaign. Anybody who has been online has seen the issues that exist. Whether it is elections or major and sensitive issues such as migration, a person who looks at just one video on Facebook or TikTok will suddenly get a stream of it. Unfortunately, some people are more susceptible than others.

In fairness, there are two parts to this, as Dr. Culloty stated. It is about how to deal with disinformation and then how to provide people with digital literacy. This relates to the Finnish example of resilience. Meta and others will talk about teams they have to deal with disinformation. They will say that disinformation sometimes comprises an element of hate with a touch of truth. Where something is factually wrong, the platforms say they can deal with that, but they say it is difficult to deal with matters that are not factually wrong. In addition, we must accept that these are companies that are out to make money. The same goes for regular media platforms. That is why we need a trusted public-----