Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the protections for children, but part of the difficulty there is that X is placing a lot of responsibility on the user. That is important in particular when one thinks about 13- to 18-year-olds who may not be fully aware of how the systems work.

It is a general challenge on the educational side. I still have to ask why the platform does not take down some of those accounts far more quickly. I accept the point about anonymity or pseudonymity and understand why certain people like to be or have to be anonymous but about 20% of the accounts on the site are multiple accounts, bots and trolls that are constantly engaging in disinformation or incitement to violence. The platform continues to allow them to exist without taking action. It expects 13-, 14- or 15-year-olds to know that they need to switch off and while I accept that some of them will, it is the wrong approach. The responsibility lies with the platform to take action. The regulator will need to take a far greater role here but I would hope that the platform would be a bit more proactive. I am saying this on foot of my experience, having watched this over the last number of years. TikTok and Meta know what my criticisms are but it must be said that those companies are making efforts to address some of the concerns. Having listened to our guests today, we are not getting that from X.