Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not use my full speaking time in case other Members need it. A lot of people are rushing to get to the Chamber.

I welcome and support this Bill which extends Coimisiún na Meán's and the Competition and the Consumer Protection Commission's levy-raising powers to fund new enforcement functions under the Digital Services Act 2024 and the terrorist content online regulation. The Digital Services Act 2024 designated Coimisiún na Meán as the lead competent authority of the EU digital services regulation, known as the digital services co-ordinator and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission as the competent authority with responsibility for the oversight of obligations in the digital services regulation that apply only to providers of online marketplace services. Coimisiún na Meán was also designated as competent authority for overseeing the implementation of specific measures of the EU regulation on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online, known as the terrorist content online regulation.

I agree with the previous speaker, Deputy Nash. It is very important the social media sector not only plays a role but pays for its role in the vitriol that is online. Enforcement of the sector's own rules is very lax. Just this week, I filed three different complaints to Twitter or X about the targeting of our national hero of the moment, Rhasidat Adeleke, by far-right, racist elements. She is a fantastic Irish athlete, a champion, a hero, a legend, and whatever other adjective one wants to apply, but she has a right not to be subjected to horrible vitriol. I was very disappointed to learn that the moderators at Twitter or X deemed that some of the horrible content did not meet its threshold for complaint. You would not get away with saying these things on the street, so how can you get away with it from behind the anonymity of your phone or laptop screen. It is absurd and wrong.

The sooner we have age verification, the better. I spent long enough in a classroom prior to my election to the Dáil. It was alarming how many youngsters were on Facebook and Instagram at the time. They have now moved on to TikTok. Age verification is important but so too is personal verification. We need to get to a point very soon where anyone on social media will need to have their character verified to be able to use it. The veil of anonymity is woeful.

We have often spoken about Twitter or X, as it is now called, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and all the different platforms. There is one alarming one, Tattle Life, that I want to highlight today. I only became aware of it a few months ago. I must have been living in the Stone Age or something. It is not a social media platform but a website with different threads and discussion boards about real-life people, many of whom are not celebrities. They are not all members of the British royal family. Some are prominent people who live in my locality or other villages and towns in Ireland. They include camogie stars and successful business people. and there are even some politicians on Tattle Life. There is a whole thread that dissects every part and fibre of their lives, from family life to where they live and where they went on holidays. There are sneaky photos taken of the family at the supermarket. It is horrible. We are obsessed with Mark Zuckerburg and the bigwigs but somebody in Britain is operating this website. The amount of slander on it is absolutely appalling. We need to get to a point very quickly where the operator is identifiable.

When election canvassing ended on Thursday nearly two weeks ago, we all had a fairly relaxing day at home after about six of seven weeks on the road knocking on doors and meeting people. I tried to watch television with my children that evening. Children and their parents have very different tastes in television programmes but we watched MrBeast. I do not know if the Acting Chair has watched MrBeast on YouTube but he is the most followed YouTuber in the world at the moment and has some interesting and funny content. When I was watching MrBeast, up popped Deputy Mary Lou McDonald every three or four minutes. Sinn Féin was pumping huge money into advertising so my nine-year-old and seven-year-old children got to see plenty of MrBeast and Deputy McDonald on the day before the election. I hope that will peel back a bit now because youngsters want to see more of MrBeast and less of Deputy McDonald.

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