Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

Some people will say that the difficulty with some platforms is that if they try to pursue the complaints process, there are huge difficulties related to that. Some platforms are particularly worse than others. I will not go into which one but I think we all know which platform I am talking about.

The difficulty in combating misinformation was mentioned. How can we combat misinformation when the owners of certain social media platforms post incredibly partisan comments calling for changes of government in Ireland, Britain and other parts of the world? Some platform owners even claim that they can get people elected. The owner of one platform has claimed to have gotten the President of the United States elected. We are taking about people who are multibillionaires. There is a challenge in terms of online safety, threats to democracy and hate when the platform owners have enormous reach. That is the big challenge we are actually facing. The imposition of a fine on these particular companies is derisory in the context of the capital they actually have. I am thinking in terms of what can be done and what Coimisiún na Meán can do about this. Up to now, the issue does not seem to be going away; it seems to be getting worse.