Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

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?

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank Senator Nelson Murray for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan.

Disinformation and misinformation are complex issues that can have wide-ranging effects on society and democracy as a whole. I will begin by highlighting the key difference between "disinformation" and "misinformation". While both terms refer to false or misleading content that may cause harm, we refer to "disinformation" as misleading content that is shared with the intention of deceiving others, while "misinformation" is misleading content that is mostly shared in good faith.

In terms of disinformation, it is a serious and complex challenge that requires a whole-of-society approach. This was recognised by the Future of Media Commission when it recommended the development of a national counter disinformation strategy. The strategy was developed by an independently chaired multi-stakeholder working group and was published on 17 April this year.

Due to the complexity of disinformation as a challenge, the strategy aims to connect key stakeholders across multiple sectors and facilitate enhanced co-operation and collaboration in our efforts to counter disinformation. The strategy highlights education in particular as having an important role in giving people the skills to recognise false material and help to prevent its dissemination. Media and digital literacy initiatives should be seen alongside the promotion of public interest information in this regard. One example of such an initiative is the Be Media Smart campaign led by Media Literacy Ireland, which encourages people to stop, think and check that the information they are consuming is reliable. Together, these initiatives can contribute to building resilience in society to the threats posed by this kind of manipulation of our democracy.

The strategy acknowledges the importance of information integrity, and the role to be played by the media and public institutions when it comes to maintaining a healthy information environment. It sets out clear actions to promote trust in the media, as well as supporting media pluralism and freedom. Furthermore, the strategy includes a commitment to strengthen public communications and trust in public institutions.

We need to learn more about disinformation in order to better counter it, so it is to be welcomed that, in line with the programme for Government, €1.1 million in funding was announced in budget 2026 to support media literacy, fact-checking and research initiatives. Legislation and regulation are absolutely vital to minimise the availability of harmful and illegal content, including disinformation. Ireland's emerging online safety framework is designed to address this challenge, and Coimisiún na Meán, as Ireland's new online safety and media regulator, is at the heart of that framework. It was established under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. The OSMR Act is one of three main elements of the framework, alongside the EU Digital Services Act, under which an coimisiún is Ireland's digital services co-ordinator, and the EU terrorist content online regulation, under which an coimisiún is a competent authority.

As Ireland's digital services co-ordinator under the Digital Services Act, Coimisiún na Meán works with the European Commission, which is the lead regulator under the Digital Services Act for the largest platforms, to ensure that they reduce the risk of harm posed to users of their services. Alongside this, since July, it has supported the implementation of the binding code of conduct on disinformation in Ireland.

The European Commission has commenced a range of investigations into various platforms for potential breaches of their regulatory obligations, including around harmful content, dark patterns and other matters.

An coimisiún is raising awareness of its own role in implementing Ireland's online safety framework and of the importance of reporting harmful content. An coimisiún has a youth advisory committee which ensures that the views of young people are also heard. Oide Technology in Education, which operates under the aegis of the Department of Education and Youth, upskills and trains teachers and educators on online safety issues.

Last week, Commissioner McGrath announced details of the EU democracy shield, which includes the establishment of a European centre for democratic resilience. Ireland stands ready to collaborate with other member states and realise the objectives set out in the EU democracy shield.

I do not underestimate the challenges that are ahead, as the Senator rightly pointed out. The online space is a very complex world that has positives but most certainly has negatives too.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Minister of State very much. I really appreciate him giving me this information. I will refer to a few points in the statement. It is great that funding of €1.1 million was announced in the budget "to support media literacy, fact-checking and research initiatives". That is going down the educational side of things.

The Minister of State also outlined that the "European Commission has commenced a range of investigations". He stated that "Commissioner McGrath announced details of the ... establishment of a European centre for democratic resilience." I very much welcome that measures are commencing and are about to be established, but I am afraid it will be too late for some people when it comes to mental health and well-being. I urge the Government to speak to social media companies. While being educated is definitely 50% of it, the other 50% is the companies' responsibility. If someone working in a restaurant gets abused, the owners would come and get the person out of the restaurant and they would never be allowed back in it again. The owners of social media companies are not protecting us enough and we should strongly urge them to do more when it comes to that space.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Senator for setting out very eloquently the challenges we face as a society in tackling online disinformation, both in terms of harmful content for our younger population and also in terms of how we consume media and the impacts and influences it can have.

From a personal perspective, I believe we should have age and identity verification on social media. The way people interact online can be very different from how they interact in the public domain. There is no silver bullet in this space. A combination of all of the factors I have outlined in the response from the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, will be required to address this issue.