Almost a year ago, when I raised with the Tánaiste the issue of whether we should follow the Australian model and introduce a ban for under-16s, the Tánaiste, I think it was the second time he said it, and the Minister said it as well, said, "The era of self-regulation is over." Then today in the Chamber we heard the Government say its age verification system is not mandatory for users and not mandatory for the IT companies. That, straight away, is still self-regulation. The Government criticised this Bill by saying that the recommenders might be a little more dangerous if they were switched off because then the kids might see anything. The whole point of stopping the kids from seeing anything is to make sure that kids do not have access to the information in the first place, which you either do by banning it outright, restricting it on certain platforms or creating an age verification system. It is possible to create an anonymised, randomised system that says, "Yes, I am over the age of 18. Now that I am an adult, whatever I want, as long as it is legal, is nobody else's business." No one in this Chamber is arguing that it should be anyone else's business, but in terms of children's access to information, kids as young as second class now have access to all sorts of disturbing content. I am not just talking about the eating disorder videos. You see different allegations being made that are not factually verified about all sorts of people and all sorts of rumours going around, and that is magnified among young people. We have seen the toxification of young men and damage to young women as well. That will continue unless we actually regulate this, and this is the nub. Any motion or any Bill that has better discussion and brings it forward, even if we have to amend proposals in the legislation, is a good thing. The GDPR argument is constantly used. It is said that it is restricting people. There are groups like the Irish Council for Civil Liberties rightly saying that personal information and personal rights need to be protected, but there is a balance between rights and responsibilities here. We are fighting an existential war to try to protect this and future generations. It has gotten to that level. We can argue that young people are a bit more savvy about what might be AI generated or they might disregard certain bits of information more than someone in their 70s looking at a scam on Facebook. They have that level of digital literacy but they do not have discernment capability. They should not be exposed to dangerous content in the first place. In some ways, I was almost thinking we should be like Marty McFly and go back to the future, to the 1980s where we did not have all this IT. Unfortunately, we know the 1980s were a misogynistic and violent cesspit like we have today. The 1990s were just as bad. There was bullying in all shapes and forms. I remember in the 1980s somebody's underwear was photocopied in the school and circulated around on a piece of paper. There was bullying through physical attacks, bullying by whispers in the corner and bullying by notes put through the letterbox. That sort of behaviour will continue because as well as being intrinsically good, we have intrinsically stupid and evil human beings as well. Social media has magnified that to multiple proportions. The techbros, the Metas, the TikToks, the Xs and Roblox are all governed by profit. The AI-generated material being spewed out, affecting our electricity grids and pushing up our energy bills, is making profit for them. It is equivalent to the 1950s when the Philip Morris company and other cigarette companies knew that cigarettes were causing cancer but they did everything they could to spew out misinformation. The companies involved in this know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly the damage. The studies are out there. It is not like every time we talk about studies from DCU or other institutions that we are learning this for the first time. We have known this for several years now. We fine them but the fines are not enough. The fines are not being paid. At this stage we should be taking the bull by the horns and saying that if they are not paying the fines, then they will be switched off. Why not have a European Facebook or TikTok where you have freedom of speech but also responsibility and regulation? Even on Facebook now they allow nicknames, and I have seen serious misinformation propagated about people taking their own lives that has been stated as fact and caused serious harm to families. It is being allowed because of nicknames. We do not have responsible moderators, so that will continue. We need to deal with this.

Sentiment score: -0.14