Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Once again, it comes down to the difficulty of trying to strike a balance. Obviously, people have a right to their good name and to be able to defend themselves. Anybody who has had to have recourse to the courts at this point in time in respect of any matter, from planning right through to criminal investigations or anything else, knows the courts are absolutely backlogged and all the rest of it. As such, anything that can be introduced to facilitate streamlining needs to be considered.

I urge caution in respect of the possible removal of juries from defamation cases. People have a right to swift justice, particularly in the context of preserving their good name. I reiterate much of what has been said. It is about that difficulty of trying to find a balance. Obviously, fabulous work has been done through investigative journalism. We certainly do not need anything that will put a cap on that or an obstacle in its path but there has to be fairness across the board.

Many speakers have referred to the fact that one place where there is absolutely no level of fairness is online. That is not news to most people in this Chamber. Obviously, any moves that can be made to reduce the protection of anonymity for people who defame others online have to be welcomed and facilitated. All present would agree there is a much wider issue. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill is being discussed in the Seanad but also for discussion in this House is the recent agreement at European level.

My view is that it is incredibly important that we deal with the social media giants as publishers. We must ensure they exercise a certain due diligence in regard to what is being posted. Whether they are dealing with the Garda or others or whether information is provided to them regarding content that is harmful, wrong or defamatory, we certainly should make it easier to have such content removed as quickly as possible.

Beyond that, we need to realise that the real difficulty when it comes to social media giants relates to the information that was put out there by Frances Haugen in regard to Facebook, in particular, and the weaponised algorithms that can be used by connected networks, whether they are state or non-state actors, trolls or whatever else. We have seen the huge impact that can have. It is particularly bad when there are corrupt regimes that utilise what is being provided to them by a business that is quite happy to do it on the basis that it makes money. We also know that huge harm has been done in individual cases, where, for example, people, particularly young people, may have issues in regard to eating disorders. We all know now how these algorithms work in general but the main difficulty is that we do not know exactly how they work. There are very few people in the world who know exactly how the Facebook algorithm works. I know how it works for me and someone else knows how it works for him or her, but we do not know exactly how it is mapped out.

The argument has been made to me that in the case of Google, for instance, we can do a search or make a contention and we know Google will be fairly good at providing information on whether that contention is true or false. In regard to Facebook, however, we cannot say exactly whether that is the case. I know from speaking to Ms Haugen that she has raised the possibility of using agent architecture and making an attempt to put a simulated system in play in order that we could test how the whole thing works. I have somewhat digressed. The point I am trying to make is that as much as we need to deal with this particular legislation, we also really need to get to grips with the social media giants and the damage that is being done in that area. In particular, we need to get to grips legislatively with, and get some technical knowledge around, the algorithms and the damage they can do across the board.

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