Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. In his speech he briefly mentioned self-regulation of online companies. This weekend, my own identity was stolen. The person who stole my identity also used my identity and my profile to send two members of the public on my Facebook page some pretty horrendous messages. When contacted, Facebook's response was that it had removed a profile my friend reported because it did not follow its community standards. It said that it let the profile owner know that it had been removed, but not who reported it. That is what Facebook said. The person who stole my identity masqueraded as me for some time until he or she was caught. I have no recourse whatsoever to find out who that person is and, but for the two or three people who contacted me and told me of the content of what was sent, I have no notion of what was said in my name. I have had similar experience with Twitter, in a different guise. As far as I am concerned, these guys cannot be trusted to self-regulate.

Senator Freeman has taken a step here. I acknowledge the attendance of Professor Aiken. Her expertise in this area is renowned worldwide. We have to stop flip-flopping around on this matter. We have to move and move very quickly. We constantly hear tragic stories about young children. As Senator Freeman said, this is about children, but even adults can have their mental health affected by some of this stuff. I see Senator Noone nodding her head. I have seen some of the horrendous stuff that has been thrown at her over the past 12 months. Fair play to her, she has held her head high and I admire everything she did. This has gone too far. One cannot even phone Facebook. There is nobody to whom one can send an email. There is no human being people can contact to say that something wrong was done to them and that they want an answer. I was speaking to a senior counsel in this regard. At the very least, I should have recourse to find out who stole my name. I cannot find that out however; I have no access to that information. I do not want to make a Second Stage speech but-----