Peter Burke: Slow social media moderation is ‘endangering’ Irish society

Why social media moderation is under the spotlight

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week on Sunday, Peter Burke said slow social media moderation by the major platforms was “not good enough”, and warned that the Government would not hold back from acting against them.

Scrutiny of platform regulation has intensified in the week since five teenagers died when the car they were travelling in went the wrong way down the M9 motorway and collided head-on with another vehicle, seriously injuring three women and a boy from the same family.

The crash has prompted widespread comment about videos of children driving dangerously circulating online.

TikTok has declined an invitation to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Media, saying it could not attend because of the ongoing Garda investigation, a separate examination by Coimisiún na Meán, and the fact that it was the only company asked to attend.

The pressure is not falling on the platforms alone.

On Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show, Irish Times journalist Jack Horgan-Jones argued that “the speed at which this content is produced and proliferates is just so much faster than regulators or any agencies can grapple with”, and suggested the State would be better going after platform licences than fines.

It lands alongside a wider push on online harms in Ireland, from moves by the Irish government to regulate online content to the visibility given to Garda road policing operations over the summer.

Funerals for the five teenagers who died have been taking place over recent days.

The Oireachtas committee is expected to return to the question of platform accountability, with the HSE-style regulatory route through Coimisiún na Meán now the sharpest test of whether social media moderation in Ireland improves.