Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My apologies for being late. We started a bit early. The Cathaoirleach sent me a text, but it was too late by that stage. Ms McDonald's presentation was important, given the hate speech that is out there.

One of the most important aspects of this matter relates to social media companies, as was rightly highlighted, and their recommender systems. We do not see what the algorithm says, but we know that if you put up a post that promotes hate or whatever, the social media companies actively promote it. I would imagine that if we put up a post on social media promoting loving your neighbours, it would die a death. That is not because the post is not worthwhile; it is because the social media company will not make money promoting it. That seems to be the thing. The recommender system, as was pointed out, is the way to do it. The question for the committee is how we make the social media companies accountable for that. Perhaps the committee can talk about that at a later stage.

It always strikes me that YouTube does not seem to be looked at as being a social media company. It is not seen the same way. However, YouTube seems to be the place where many of these people are organising, putting their videos up and so on. I wonder about the use of and policing of social media companies and what more we can do. Is it pushing them to make this recommender system? How do we put in place a system that is enforceable or that can make the recommender system work? We can bring the social media companies in here and meet them behind closed doors, as another committee did a couple of weeks ago. However, it will not make any difference. How do we develop that system to make a difference?