I thank People Before Profit for taking the initiative and bringing this important Bill forward. Is it necessary? Of course, it is necessary. I saw the repeat of “Prime Time” last night, which dealt with the experience of a young woman, Caitlyn, in UCD. She is roughly the same age as my granddaughter, who is also attending UCD. It stopped me in my tracks to see that people could have such attitudes. Where does that come from, and how did it develop? What is the role of online in this regard? We hope that Caitlyn can make a recovery. Her testimony was shocking. It shows the urgency with which we need to deal with this. Social media companies are using these algorithms to make money, and they are exploiting users of the Internet. It is about profit. Criminals are doing likewise. Children and young teenagers are exposed to all sorts of harmful content on the Internet. Algorithms can be used to increase exposure and steer people into rabbit holes that bring them into situations like the one we saw last night. They are geared towards hooking people and keeping them clicking. There is the potential for massive exploitation. Users need to have the right to turn them off. Tech companies should be held liable if their AI tools are used without the safeguards. The Government needs to regulate, and it has failed so far to do that. Some countries, including Australia, have moved to get young people off social media, and have put restrictions in place through effective age verification. That is essential. Along with what is proposed in this Bill, we should look to put an age limit on social media, although perhaps 14 instead of 16. It is an issue that needs to be explored. The exploitation of Internet users, particularly children and vulnerable people, needs to stop. The Oireachtas and the Government need to have legislation in place. We cannot leave it to the tech giants. They are making big money out of it, so they are not going to do it. It is clear what their intentions are. We have to protect people, in particular children. With regard to online safety, we can do things. Let us consider what we did with Coco’s law. We have that in place to deal with people who share intimate images of others or threaten to share images that they may or may not have. It is not always men who do it, and women can do it as well, but it is mainly men. The level of sexism out there is shocking. We need strong legislation. When people do that and then add extortion or blackmail, they need to be treated with the full rigour of the law. People who do that to try to extort money, on top of trying to expose images that they may or may not have, need to be treated as serious criminals. I support the Bill on algorithms. I thank People Before Profit. I am disappointed that the Government is not supporting it. We have to sort this out. The Minister referred to doing this when we have the EU Presidency. That is fine, but we need to do it. We have a responsibility to do it, as the Government and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Sentiment score: 0.03