Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

No, I am okay. I read the opening statements before coming to the meeting. They contain a fair amount on the role of social media. I thank the witnesses for attending.

As politicians, when we try to dispel misinformation, we find it difficult. For example, if I wanted to pay for something to be relayed on Facebook or another Meta platform further than is usually the case, I would have to include a disclaimer about it being political. Messages like that do not go as far as they used to. We are being limited in getting the message out there to contradict some of this misinformation. On the other hand, there are people who call themselves citizen journalists who have a far reach. Meta has controls in place in respect of journalists getting a wider reach, but if people call themselves citizen journalists, they seem to get a wider reach than the elected representatives who are trying to dispel that misinformation. Is there any way to combat this?