Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I sincerely thank Fine Gael and Senator Seery Kearney for using their Private Members' time to discuss this really serious public health issue this evening. I compliment what is a very detailed motion. Of course, social media has a lot of positives and we all use it. However, we are also talking about a device and social media platforms that are addictive by design. The recommender systems and algorithms that are part and parcel of the social media platforms most of us here use on a daily basis are designed to grow addictive behaviour. Senator Seery Kearney already quoted some of the frightening research that is out there from the US Surgeon General and others.

The critical thing is that we have not had information sharing or research sharing from the platforms themselves. We have had to rely on others. I was struck by some research by one of Oxford's lead researchers on social media and its effects on mental health, Professor Andrew Przybylski, who said, “People talk about Instagram like it's a drug. But we can't study the active ingredient.” We have, therefore, had to rely on leaked internal reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and, indeed, other media outlets to gain some sort of an insight as to what the social platforms themselves understand as to the impacts.In one study of teens in the US and UK, Facebook found that more than 40% of Instagram users reported feeling unattractive and said that feeling began on the app. An internal Meta study in 2020 showed that 500,000 Instagram accounts a day were involved in inappropriate interactions with children. Despite this, we are not seeing any action taken by these social media platforms. We will hear a lot of lip service but the "Prime Time Investigates" programme regarding TikTok and a great deal of other journalistic and academic reporting on the issue demonstrates that we are seeing very little action. The key issue is that companies are effectively prioritising profit over public safety. We can all agree on that.

We are all agreed on many of the solutions set out here this evening with regard to mental health supports, digital literacy and all of that. However, there is a key question with regard to two of the recommendations. The Minister has already referred to this. I refer to the ban on the purchase of smartphones for those under the age of 13. The key question is how that would work in practice. There is an issue as to how we place expectations on families and parents to police social media use. To my mind, that is a deflection when the spotlight and responsibility should be put on the social media platforms themselves. In some ways, it is quite a libertarian view to expect private individuals to regulate themselves rather than putting it up to social media platforms to desist from their recommender systems, to publish their internal research and ultimately to make the online world a much safer place. They have the power. I am very circumspect about the proposal to ban the purchase of phones for the under-13s. I have three small kids and would love for that proposal to work in practice but I know from talking to many parents that they have many reasons for wanting to buy phones for their children. Those may relate to safety when walking home in the evening or some other issue.

We also need to be realistic and understand that it is not only on smartphones that kids can access harmful online content. They can also do so on the laptop at home. They might be making some legitimate use of the laptop but then veer into something else.

The other key issue has regard to raising the digital age of consent. I very much support that and would love for it to be possible but we are not seeing it policed. I hear what the Minister is saying with regard to the code of conduct. I very much welcome the code of conduct coming into effect sooner rather than later but I have serious concerns about that code. Just how much power have we given Coimisiún na Meán in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022? When amendments on the recommender systems explicitly hardwiring into the legislation an ability on the part of Coimisiún na Meán to set down very clear rules and regulations on those systems were put down on Committee Stage last year, those amendments were not accepted. I have a concern about the teeth and effectiveness of Coimisiún na Meán when it is fully up and running. I hope it will be fully resourced and able to do the job we all want to see it do but I am concerned about the legislative backing behind Coimisiún na Meán, whether it goes far enough and whether we are leaving Coimisiún na Meán open to the threat of legal action from the platforms.