Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

We all know the harm that can result from online toxic material. We know especially the harm that can be done to children. We have had fine speeches from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs making that point, but what is the Government going to do about it? The answer so far is nothing. It is a fine issue to make speeches about and to have concerns on, but when it comes to taking action and taking on the big tech companies, the Government has a record of inaction so far. The Government set up Coimisiún na Meán to regulate this. The commission recommended in its draft online safety code that social media companies should turn off recommender algorithms by default. This one simple measure would have a massive impact. What happened to that recommendation? It was removed after lobbying by big tech companies. We had that confirmed at the AI committee just a couple of weeks ago.

Turning off recommender algorithms by default and turning them off entirely when the user is under 18 would be transformative. At a stroke, it would stop the torrent of toxicity that big tech is flooding us with so that we stay online for longer and buy more stuff. Big tech is exploiting the human instinct to rubberneck even though we do not like what we see, even though it disgusts us. It is why their algorithms recommend execution videos and racist far-right propaganda. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg turn us all into motorists gawking at car accidents.

Turning off the algorithm would mean teenage boys would no longer have misogynistic manosphere content being pushed at them the minute they go online, which is what happens - a teenage boy buys a new blank mobile phone, sets up a teenage boy's account and within half an hour is flooded with this crap. Teenage girls could use social media to communicate with their friends without being inundated with viral videos promoting eating disorders, suicide and self-harm. Women could go online without being bombarded with upsetting videos about miscarriages and stillbirths as soon as the algorithm realises that they are pregnant. The point is not to censor this material; people can still look it up if they want to. The point is to stop social media companies pushing toxic material at us as standard, to stop them normalising racism, sexism and transphobia, and to stop Elon Musk exploiting his ownership and control of social media to flood the zone, whip up fear and hatred, manipulate politics and push it to the far right around the world. That is why we will be introducing a Bill next week on First Stage to turn off recommender algorithms by default and to ban them entirely for children. To make a real difference, we need to take on the big tech companies.

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