Ms Julie de Bailliencourt:

I thank Ms Siobhán Cummiskey and the Chairman. I am the head of safety policy for Facebook for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As mentioned, on top of our strong policies we have built a sophisticated set of tools to address potentially abusive behaviour and to help people to manage their own experience on Facebook. They include tools and features related to privacy and security as well as conflict resolution, blocking and reporting. In particular, we have invested time and resources in building an industry-leading reporting system. Reporting a piece of content to Facebook is quick, easy and confidential. Every single piece of content on our platform can be reported to us via the reporting links which appear beside each piece of content. People who report content can let us know why they believe it should not be on Facebook, whether it is a nude picture or a bullying comment. Non-Facebook users can also report content to us via a dedicated contact form.

Our team receives tens of millions of reports every week from all over the world. We prioritise the most serious issues first. Many of the reports related to suicide, credible threats, child safety or bullying are reviewed ahead of any other topics. We work hard to ensure that those reports are reviewed by our team as quickly as possible. The vast majority of reports are reviewed within 24 hours and evaluated against our community standards.

Our team of experts include native speakers of more than 50 languages working 24-7 throughout the globe. The team is close to 7,500 people, several hundred of whom are located in our Dublin headquarters.

If reported content is found to be against our community standards, it is immediately removed. We also close the loop with the person who reported the content to let him or her know what action we have taken. People who engage in abusive behaviour on Facebook face varying consequences, ranging from a warning to losing their accounts permanently. In the most severe cases, for example, where child exploitation is involved, such people can be referred to law enforcement. Our help centre includes a range of additional contact forms where people can report copyright violations, privacy rights violations, defamation and more.

I am keen to highlight today how we support people who may be victim to what is known as revenge porn. We have a specific contact form whereby people can get in contact touch with us and get immediate support from our team. Earlier this year, we announced the launch of a new tool to prevent further the resharing of such content on our service. When young people register on Facebook, they benefit from specific behind-the-scenes protections relating to safety and security. For example, they do not surface on public listings and their personal information is not visible to the public. We also have some built-in technology that may flag suspicious friending activity between teens and adults.

While we are committed to removing bullying content as quickly as possible, our philosophy on the reporting side is also to empower young people to speak to someone they trust about these issues to get resolution where bullying may take place, namely, in the classroom. As I mentioned, we have strong processes against child sexual exploitation. Since 2011, Facebook has been using an image recognition tool called photoDNA which scans every photograph uploaded on our platform. If the content is found to be of child sexual exploitation, it is immediately deleted and referred to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US which will, in turn, contact local law enforcement agencies.

We have been investing in suicide prevention since 2006 and we work with more than 70 suicide prevention experts throughout the world. When people report instances of self-harm to our team, we strive to review these reports within minutes and provide supportive resources to the reporting person and the friend at risk, further signposting to specialised local listening services.

Facebook has a wealth of easy to understand resources, such as our safety centre, help centre and bullying prevention hub as well as the parents' portal, which was launched last year. We continuously work with partners to launch educational programmes and resources that are available to download online. Examples include Do you Think before You Share? with SpunOut.ie, Help a Friend in Need with Samaritans, or our anti-bullying activism guide with the Diana award. Our safety partners throughout the world have a dedicated channel through which they can contact us to report sensitive situations. In Ireland, these organisations include hotline.ieand, more recently, the crime victims helpline. We are also in the process of adding the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, ISPCC. Our partners also provide us with invaluable ongoing feedback on where we can do better. We are all part of the same effort and we have found this multi-stakeholder approach effective.

Facebook has been involved in a number of self-regulatory initiatives, such as ICT Coalition, since 2012. In February of this year we also signed up to the European Commission alliance to better protect minors online. We partner on an ongoing basis with Google, Twitter, Microsoft and many others to ensure we share knowledge and work together on topics such as counterterrorism and child sexual exploitation. For the past two years, Facebook and Google have joined forces to run what is now an annual safety summit in Dublin for safety organisations for all of Europe, Middle East and Africa. I am happy to take any questions on these topics.