Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is a great legislation and it is a great stimulus for debate and the thought behind it is thorough. I quite like the definitions in it. I am someone who has built my whole life on advocacy, working in communities and being an activist. The obvious choice of career was to try to move into politics and make that effective change from inside this House. I understand the chilling effect on freedom of speech of advocacy groups that this definition has brought about. I have been aware of it in organisations and somewhere on file there are probably letters I have written complaining about it. I am ad idemwith Members when it comes to the spirit behind this legislation.

I welcome what is in the programme for Government, what is being brought forward and the initiatives being taken in the area of the electoral reform commission and the idea of bringing this before the joint Oireachtas committee. I am on that committee and I pledge to make sure to watch this and make sure it does not slip off the agenda.

One of my great discoveries in this House has been having fantastic conversations thus far and looking forward to many more with Senator Byrne. We are in a similar nerdy mode when it comes to data and we exchange nerdy words on data. One of my key concerns and one of the big things affecting democracy is the use of social media and not just with regard to online political advertising.My concern is that the definition we are trying to legislate for is far too narrow. If we have learned anything from the Cambridge Analytica data breach, the documentaries made about it and the books written on it, either by whistleblowers or by people trying to clear their conscience and save their careers, it is that social media affects how we think and is designed to manipulate us. Social media is designed to control us and to get inside our heads in ways that we do not even realise in order to manipulate us. Those of us who did the old-fashioned thing and bought The Irish Times this morning will have read the same articles. We might agree or disagree with what we read but at least we all got the same news from the same source. The problem with social media is that it is tailored to our likes, depending on how long we pause to look at a particular image, for example. People can go down a rabbit hole, follow something innocuous and end up being exposed to extreme content. They can be radicalised towards violence or positions of ultra-fear.

When we are looking at electoral reform and how we deal with definitions, we need to consider the role of social media and the issue of how our democracy is being undermined. When it comes to news feeds and information being fed to us through social media, people will see very different things because they like different things or are of different genders, have children of different ages and so on. Everything about our lives is manipulated to commodify us as human beings and turn us into purchasers and users. That stream of influence in our lives is in private hands for marketing and profit purposes. It is not like the old days when people would congregate outside this House and try to influence those who are legislating; we do not really know where power lies anymore because of social media. The social media giants need to be taken on and legislated for and I say that in due recognition of all of the employment they provide in this State. They represent a massive threat to democracy. We have already seen the evidence of that in Britain and the US and we should take it very seriously. We need to consider the points made earlier within the larger conversation and we need to be legislating far more powerfully. We actually need to go further than what is being proposed here.