Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of social media. We have discussed this many times in the Chamber. All of us will have received what I consider to be abusive messages on Twitter. I refer to Twitter in particular because it is probably the most toxic, but my comments refer to all social media platforms. Twitter offers users the ability to report abusive messages or messages that contravene what the company describes as the Twitter rules. I do not usually bother doing that because I think it is a futile exercise, but did so today in respect of a tweet that said I was corrupt. That is obviously not true and there is no evidence behind that claim, but that does not seem to matter to the trolls online.Within two hours I had received a reply that stated it saw no difficulty with the tweet despite the fact its rules state that in order to facilitate healthy dialogue on the platform and empower individuals to express diverse opinions and beliefs, it prohibits behaviour that harasses or intimidates or is otherwise intended to shame or degrade others. Apparently this means it is okay to call people corrupt, describe them as cockroaches and put them into classes of people who do all kinds of awful things. On the one hand Twitter tells us it is serious about this and on the other hand it pays scant regard to politicians, in particular, because I doubt there is a Member of this House, the Dáil or local authorities throughout the country who has not received such a message. Essentially, Twitter states it does not care and it does not matter, and that people can say what they like on social media because politicians do not matter. I suspect this is true of many other groups of people, from schoolchildren to elderly people. The Chamber has an opportunity to send a message to Twitter and other social media platforms, and I hope legislation will come forward this year in this regard, that it will not be acceptable to have so-called rules that mean absolutely nothing because they are never enforced. If Twitter is serious about having a platform that is not filled with the toxicity we see in it today, it has to enforce these rules and it has to take action against users who continue to flout these rules.