Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Misogyny, toxic masculinity, far-right ideology and anti-transgender rhetoric are what researchers from Dublin City University's anti-bullying centre were fed back within two minutes of registering fake accounts as teenage boys with TikTok and YouTube Shorts. TikTok recommended 76% toxic content after being watched for an average of just two hours and 32 minutes. You would want to be very naive to think there is not a strong connection between this kind of stuff and male violence against women.

Andrew Tate is typical of the creators of this toxic content. Describing how he would react if a woman accused him of cheating, he said: "It's bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck." Facing rape charges in Romania, he said: "I'm not a rapist but I like the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free". Tate had been banned from Twitter – X - but he has been reinstated by X's new owner, the world's richest man, Elon Musk. His videos across all platforms had been viewed 11.6 billion times by 2022.

I will make two points in the time available to me about these issues. First, the promotion of content which boosts male violence against women is big business. It is very profitable. Regulation can be a step forward but, at the end of the day, you cannot control what you do not own. The big social media platforms must be taken into public ownership and put under the control of society.

Second, people need to get organised and fight back.

Misogyny and male violence against women are not just down to a few bad apples; they are woven into the fabric of capitalist society. We need to fight back against them, but that fight must go hand in hand with a struggle for system change.

See this speech in context