Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for being here. It is important to say that I am not here to diss social media or to be contradictory in giving out so much about it when I use it myself every day. I use social media both personally and professionally. Professionally, it allows me to show what I am doing in my work and to see the concerns of people living in my constituency. People can reach out to politicians like me on social media, which is great. All of that is A1. For the most part, I enjoy using social media, especially when I see something like "Rory's Stories" or "Conor Sketches" appear on my feed. There is nothing like the two lads to give me a break from the norm.

However, as we know, there is a very dark side to social media that I strongly feel we need protection from, along with support, as users and for our youth. There are negative impacts on mental health, such as anxiety, depression and poor self-esteem. We see the spread of misinformation and harmful content. There are significant privacy risks arising from data breaches and exposure to predators. Other downsides include cyberbullying and exposure to unrealistic social comparators or inappropriate content.

On social media, sensational and derogatory content can spread faster than neutral or positive content. It can be difficulty to pick out verified information from information that has been misconstrued, misrepresented or manipulated. It spreads so fast on social media that it is almost like a virus. I remember having a conversation with a person recently. She was angry about a company that had closed down. In her words, they had made billions but were letting people go. Her source was somebody in the UK who was taking news from Ireland and putting it in her own words. I got the real information and explained it to her. She was shocked that the video she had seen was not true.

A third of all adults in Ireland have mistakenly shared misinformation online and 46% of us admit that misinformation has influenced our opinions or beliefs. Twenty years ago, all of us got our news from the TV or the radio but that figure is now only 46%. Only recently, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, removed an AI-generated deepfake video spreading false information about the presidential election. One of the videos had the appearance of an RTÉ news report on the false claim. There are thousands of cases like this. Social media companies should have robust trust and safety mechanisms in place. They need to respond faster to people who report. They need to check the facts are correct. One of the biggest things they also need to do is to urge users to read articles and not just go by the headlines. Another crucial part is broadcasting the real data the information is based on because sometimes you will go in and find it is a news article from a few years ago. There needs to be independent audits of these platforms to check their users are being treated with respect. Fake businesses online are another issue that catches out many of us in Ireland. Companies pretend to be Irish but they are not.

It is reported that one in four accounts on social media are fake. This worries me, especially in light of personal attacks on people. According to fact checking, one fake account had posted 99,000 times since it was set up in March 2023, meaning it had posted an average of 220 posts every day or once every seven minutes. Politicians like me are targets. I have heard people say that is what we signed up for when we entered public life but that is not what I or any of my colleagues signed up for. We are doing a job to the best of our ability and we are privileged to do so. The last thing I need to be seeing is hateful and disgusting comments. When I chat to people, they commonly say they would not be able to do my job with the stuff I see online but the positives far outweigh the negatives. That is for sure, but I would like to see the hate stop for people like me. While you can block people, you have to read the comments first and we should not be forced to see that. Think of it this way. If you were a waitress in a restaurant serving food to somebody who suddenly starts shouting horrible abuse at you, that person would be banned from the restaurant. The Garda would probably be called and that person would never be let back in again. The same needs to be done for social media accounts.

There is also a significant interplay between the online and offline worlds. Acts of intimidation and harassment occur offline and are then exaggerated online. Unfortunately, I have also had experience of this. It is just not nice.

What has really urged me to speak on all of this is having had my first experience of a presidential election as a politician. I literally could not believe the hate that was spread online.I thought it reached a new level. I am very worried for the future of our children and what they are going to see. My two kids are almost ten and 11, so they have very few years left before they get phones or are on social media. I dread to think what they will see.

Only seven days ago, a man living in Galway was sent to jail for nine years for the rape of two young girls he met on Snapchat. He groomed the girls on that platform, who were aged 14 and ten. I accept that as parents we have a responsibility to do our best to keep our kids safe online, but we cannot protect them all the time. Our kids deserve protection online. How can the Minister of State reassure us as to what the social media companies are doing to protect people, kids and businesses online?