Ms Niamh McDonald:

There needs to better understanding of the Garda – I said this as the Deputy arrived – and about the dynamics of the far right and how it uses social media. I do not think they are fully aware across the Garda and there is an uneven response to what is happening locally on the ground across the country. I speak to people up and down the country who are trying to respond to this. It is also about holding the social media companies to account about the real everyday harms and violence that is happening and to link it. When people speak about hate and extremism, it is not linked to how social media can facilitate that. That is not part of the conversation. We want to make it part of the conversation. I am not a legislator. The recommender system is a long-term project.

I will send the European Commission’s code of conduct on countering hate and illegal speech online to the committee. Why have they not fulfilled their role around that? Why have they not engaged with experts on the ground such as ourselves in the Hope and Courage Collective to find out what the dynamics are on the ground? When we speak to particular social media companies, they will not take the wider context of what is happening on the ground rather they will look at a specific incident. We met with the social media companies I think two years ago, before the intensity we have faced over the past 18 months.

They point-blank refused to see that they have white supremacists on YouTube or on their platforms, and will refuse to see what they do outside of that. The rules and the community standards that they put in place actually facilitate that content is not removed. If they are going to make community standards, they need to be our community standards and those of our communities, the diverse communities we have and the minority communities. They are facilitating their money - that is what their community standards do. We have to row that back. They are here and have their headquarters in Ireland at the moment. They are less than 2 km away from us and as they are causing distinct violence across our communities, that needs to be reckoned.