Pornography is the “single biggest online danger,” Senator Rónán Mullen has told a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport.
The committee met on Wednesday to discuss the regulation of online platforms, specifically with regards to age verification and the protection of children and young people.
Mr Mullen asked representatives from major social media companies if they would have any objection to an Irish law to restrict access to social media companies for those aged under 16.
Google said it did not believe that restrictions for the age group were the answer, whilst Meta and TikTok representatives also said they were against the “disproportionate” action of restricting under 16s from platforms.
“I suspected as much,” the Senator replied. “Because I believe you are all in the psychological manipulation business because you depend on advertising. You depend on keeping people’s attention [and] keeping people online, keeping people on your platform.”
“I don’t hear you speaking about the risk of these platforms to formative minds, to how your services might impact upon people’s psychological development, their attention span, the question of whether your stuff feeds addiction,” he added.
“Or whether your persuasive techniques are harmful in the short or the long term. I find it difficult to think that you don’t actually prioritise commercial pressures over child wellbeing because lots of experts are saying that the kinds of problems you’re causing for children can’t be managed away; can’t be regulated away, because it would hit at the core business model you operate, which is keeping people constantly engaged.
“I just wonder then how you can credibly say that you’re in the business of prompting safe online experiences for people because safety is a question of ‘how long is a piece of string?’
“Pornography is the single biggest online danger, and our country has admittedly failed to legislate, so you can justly point to the lack of legislation in this country. What do you say to the need for strict age verification?
“In certain states in the US, websites like pornhub have been driven offline because they are civilly liable if young people access porn, simple as that. What do you say to you, similarly being civilly liable if you are the means for children to access pornography?”
Senator Mullen did not get a direct answer regarding pornography, and went on to ask about AI chatbots and companions, and specifically the concern that these companions “remember what you ask them.”
“If we regulate that children under 16 can’t access social media platforms that give access to AI chatbots, would the likes of Google then have a free run of the pitch?”
Ryan Meade, Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager at Google, said it was a “big question.”
He said he would have to look into it, but that users had rights to request that their data be deleted.
On AI ‘nudification’ images, a representative said that with Meta AI and AI studios, artificial intelligence is trained not to comply with requests to create nude images.
“It’s baked in from the outset,” David Miles, Meta’s Safety Policy Director for Europe said.
GIBNEY CLAIMS META ‘BACKING TRUMP’
Sinead Gibney TD of the Social Democrats, a former Google employee, accused Meta of “backing Trump.” She declared that she had worked for the company from 2006–2014.
“I know people are calling the companies here today different terms […] I like the term ‘Big Tech’ because I think it gets across the control of power that a very few companies have within the tech space and within broader society, essentially led by ‘broligarchs’ over in the US,” said Gibney.
“Digital deregulation is being pushed by the Trump administration, we know this, with the support of big tech including some of the companies here today,” Gibney said. She claimed that “people on the ground” that the influence of such companies was paving the way for people’s “rights being eroded online.”
“In a nutshell, it’s not about removing individual rights,” said a Meta spokesperson.
“You are lobbying the US administration to threaten Europe into deregulating online spaces,” claimed Gibney.
“It’s pretty obvious, TikTok is not a US owned business,” a spokesperson for the company replied. “We operate in a hundred different countries, so we engage with many many governments. It’s no surprise that we would be engaging on both sides of the Atlantic,” Meta said.
“You are backing Trump to push for greater deregulation in Europe,” claimed Gibney, to which a Meta spokesperson responded: “I think our agenda is fairly consistent. We see there’s scope for greater simplification in the EU rulebook and that’s the position we would take with any government.”
“Similarly, it’s a very consistent position.” added another spokesman. “And I would note it’s not just US companies who are calling for greater simplification. There’s about 60 European companies [too].”
The Social Dems politician said that she “respectfully disagreed” with the opinion of experts who denied her assertion that algorithms were designed to be addictive.
“We have DCU research that shows that less than an hour after users sign on, harmful content is provided to them. What this shows to me is that algorithms are providing, seeking to make it addictive to users.
“Do you agree, do you confirm here today that algorithms are designed to be addictive, to keep our eyes on the screen, at a fundamental level?”
A representative of TikTok told Ms Gibney: “No, we would say that algorithms are here to provide users with content experiences that they enjoy. To help them find communities and to access a range of content that they might not necessarily have spent time looking at. They’re not designed to be addictive.”
YouTube agreed, saying algorithms help to sort through an enormous amount of content.
“We prioritise user experience over time spent,” a spokesperson said.