Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I welcome all of the witnesses. I thank them for coming here today. We are discussing a very serious issue. It is probably the most serious issue facing society in the next 30 years. One of the issues that concerns me, which was also raised by one of the speakers, is that misinformation is not actually breaking the law. That needs to be dealt with quickly. The second thing that needs to be dealt with is the funding to organisations to try to stop this misinformation. The Internet is an uncontrolled medium. At least the national media we have, such as RTÉ and the local and national newspapers, are a controlled media. I do not mean controlled by the State; they are controlled by libel law. Until we start prosecuting people who are putting misinformation up on Facebook and elsewhere, it is really challenging to democracy at the moment. If something is not done, something very serious will happen. It has already happened, as some of the previous speakers have said, with riots in Dublin and riots in Belfast. We have unrest all over the world and we see the way the Internet can be used to bring people together to give misinformation and to get illegal gatherings. We need to do something about it.

The one thing that worries me, and I would like the witnesses to comment on it, is whether governments are doing enough. The European Union is great for regulating. They regulate and regulate but it is funny how it has not made any effort to regulate this industry at all. This will have to be dealt with, not just at national or EU level but also at world level. Everybody is going to have to be on the same hymn sheet in this.

While social media and all that is very good for getting information, people are getting misinformation. It is coming to the stage - I heard about a survey on this on the radio yesterday - where even children as young as six or eight are now beginning to doubt the information that is on the Internet. They are worried about the information. They do not know what is truth and what are lies. We have to do something about that. Those are all my comments for now. I will come back in again.