Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the same section on age-inappropriate online content, two examples are mentioned in respect of violence and pornography. I reserve the right to bring in other areas. It is a section that could be very useful in addressing areas where there may be a reluctance to have a kind of activity fully designated. I come at this in a different way in some of the later sections. When we are trying to designate certain kinds of things as harmful - and there are certain things that while there may be debate or a desire to leave discretion to the commission as to whether they may be designated as harmful - we can be very clear they are not age-appropriate. Again, that comes into the question not just of the kind of content but also the kind of targeting. It comes back to that core question I mentioned earlier. We can give an example such as eating disorders, which is an area where there has been some concern around targeting of products. It is basically the idea of the profiling of persons who are younger and the targeting of advertising content towards them, including advertising content that may be based on a particular vulnerability, including a psychological or physical vulnerability, of that younger person. There would be a kind of double layer of the exploitation of vulnerability and the exploitation of vulnerability in respect of a younger person.

Again, some of the issues we have tried to address in general, such as gambling, could perhaps be addressed at least in respect of age in order that we send a very clear signal that people should not be targeting minors with advertisements and materials that may cause them harm.It would allow us to be more specific if the Minister ends up not being inclined to widen the provisions on harmful content. We could at least address some of these issues in respect of content that is not age appropriate.