John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I offer my apologies on behalf of Senator Carrigy. Over the past year and a half, he has worked hard on the committee with colleagues. Unfortunately, he cannot make it today. I am happy to fill in for him because this is an issue in which I have taken a personal interest for the past 18 months in terms of big tech and the algorithms that are being used. I watched Ms Frances Haugen's testimony to the US Congress, the European Parliament and the House of Commons. Given how big tech has been so beneficial, Ms Haugen going around the world and giving personal testimony to parliaments shows how important this matter is.

I wish to set out the context for why we are introducing legislation like this. It has to do with the US and section 230 of its Communications Decency Act of 1996. It was one of the world's first Internet Acts and came about to provide news websites that had comment sections with immunity against libellous comments. It made sense at the time because we were in a new era and did not know what it was. Now, big tech companies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hide behind that section because they can define themselves as platforms as opposed to publishers. When they are not treated as publishers, they are not responsible for the content - much of the time, it is hateful content - that is posted on their sites. The loophole they use is to say that they are only hosting the content and are not responsible for it. The minute that social media and big tech companies become responsible for the content on their platforms, the sooner they will take greater care towards it.

We have needed to introduce legislation like this because they have failed to self-regulate regardless of all the times they have said they are doing this or that. It would not make sense for them to self-regulate because doing so would fundamentally alter their business model. Like any business, their business model is to try to make a profit. Why on Earth would Mark Zuckerberg or other people in big tech turn around and alter their algorithms to make them safer for people and, in the process, lose money? It will not happen. That is why it is so important for governments to step in and legislate. That is what the Irish Government is doing today and what the EU is doing with the Digital Services Act. In the US, trying to repeal section 230 was the one thing that the former President, Donald Trump, and Democrats could agree on. There are moves in the US Congress to do that now. It would be a decent approach. That is the context for where we find ourselves today.

Something else that we have to understand and acknowledge is that big tech moves at lightning speed and is changing every week. It is difficult for the government in any democracy to try to keep pace with that. We are trying to do so with this Bill, but it is important that we build mechanisms into the legislation so that we can review it every year. There is no point in just passing it, putting it on the Statute Book and forgetting about it for four or five years. Since big tech is an ever-evolving system, it will have to be monitored rigorously and continuously. As my colleague, Senator Cassells, said when referencing Ms Haugen on RTÉ over the weekend, we must have people in the commission who are experts in algorithms and in how big tech works. We need to pursue big tech employees to work for us and help us shine a light on what these companies are doing. The commission needs the highest quality personnel. Otherwise, I fear that it will not be as successful as it could be.

I will turn to a few other aspects. I welcome the Minister's comments on an individual complaints mechanism and that she will revert to us 90 days after 31 January. I understand why some people may baulk at the concept of an individual complaints mechanism. For example, if I fell out with Senator Warfield or Senator Keogan, anyone could report a comment on this and that. The mechanism will not work if it is being abused by people who are using it just because they do not like what so and so said. However, it allows for action to be taken where someone has clear evidence of sustained harassment or abuse over a distinct period. At the moment, what can an individual who is being harangued, abused or harassed online do? He or she can go to the Garda or take the offenders through a costly, time-consuming and laborious legal process. However, if someone is able to make a direct complaint to the commission about an individual who is clearly targeting a certain section of society or so on, then that individual can be blocked from a platform or sanctions of some sort can be applied. Importantly, this would provide people with reassurance that there is an avenue to make such complaints and that they would be backed up in doing so.

We have discussed misinformation. Last week, I read a good article in The Economistabout big tech and misinformation. It had a really good cartoon depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who are traditionally Famine, Death, War and Conquest. Three of those are matters that previous societies had to contend it, but perhaps the 21st century has to contend with a fifth horseman, namely, misinformation. Misinformation is being used around the world to try to destabilise economies and democracies and undermine vaccines and Covid responses. It is being allowed to run amok online. This was shown a couple of years ago when Facebook's algorithms took people down rabbit holes. If people searched for a certain thing, it would produce another level of that content and then another level, and they would go further and further down the rabbit hole. There is an excellent podcast from The New York Timescalled "Rabbit Hole". It details exactly how these algorithms worked. After the lid was blown on the story, Facebook all of a sudden said it needed to do something about it. This is why we cannot trust big tech companies whatsoever.

I went off on a slight tangent there, so I will return to my point on misinformation. The Department of Education and the commission could examine a good approach that Finland has been taking since 2014. That year, Finland came under a large cyberattack from Russia over perceived grievances. As a result, Finland's department of education introduced misinformation classes in which it showed primary school children what online misinformation was, how to identify it and how to react to it. If we did something like that to prepare Irish children for the online world, which is different than when some of us were younger, it would go a long way.

The reason we must introduce this legislation is because it would be insane for us to rely on big tech companies to regulate themselves. It will never happen. They have tried to do it. Actually, to be honest, I do not really think that they have tried to do it. They have only tried after the lid was blown on some of their practices. They then give mealy-mouthed responses about what they are trying to do. Until the business model of big tech changes – the companies will never change it themselves – governments will have to step in and regulate. This Bill will be the first such legislation to be introduced and will be followed by other democracies around the world.

It is important that we review the legislation every year. If we do not, we will not be able to keep up with the lightning speed of big tech.