Stephen Donnelly compares social media firms to tobacco industry in fight for child online safety
As he launched the establishment of a new Online Safety Taskforce, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said that parents are not fully aware of the “mental and physical injuries” that are being inflicted on children on social media platforms.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said that asking social media companies to protect children online is akin to “asking the tobacco industry to do the right thing”.
As he launched the establishment of a new Online Safety Taskforce, the Fianna Fáil TD said that parents are not fully aware of the “mental and physical injuries” that are being inflicted on children on social media platforms.
He also expressed concerns that children “are not safe online” but welcomed the fact that fewer people are using “toxic” Twitter.
The task force will examine the “range of social, mental health, physical health and sexual health harms being caused to young people by certain types of online behaviours and content” on online platforms and recommend responses to these issues.
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Minister Donnelly stated that social media companies can no longer be trusted to remove harmful content.
He said: “I think the time of asking or expecting online platforms to do the right thing is over. I think we might as well be asking tobacco companies to do the right thing.
“The online platforms, some of them have taken measures. Many of them have not. “We're all aware of platforms where they've been asked to take down horrific content and have refused to do so.
“The partnership approach is over. I wouldn't suggest a partnership approach with tobacco companies. I'm not suggesting a partnership approach with online platforms. We tried that. It didn't work. I'm suggesting a public health-led approach that says ‘it is our obligation to keep children safe’.”
Under the Digital Services Act, the Government will be able to levy fines of up to €20m, or 10% of their global turnover, on social media companies if they do not comply with orders to take content down.
Minister Donnelly told the Irish Mirror that he was “struck” by statistics in the Cybersafe Kids report that said that unrestricted access to social media was growing while parents’ involvement was decreasing.
He suggested that while parents will always want to do right by their kids, they are not always aware that their youngsters are being exposed to “violence against women, sexual violence against women, male supremacy, the extent of the harm, physical harms, mental harms”.
He continued: “What people may be less aware of is the extent to which children are being encouraged to starve themselves. Eating disorders are being glorified.
“Children are being encouraged to hurt themselves, to cut themselves, to kill themselves.
“Healthy sexual development is being twisted and distorted to encourage acts of sexual violence, largely against women. Male supremacy has been glorified to the point that young men are being encouraged to commit acts of violence against women.
“Our mental health teams, our community workers, our GPS, our teachers, our Emergency Department teams and parents are seeing children with mental and physical injuries as a direct result. They’re telling us this is happening at scale and it is getting worse.”
Minister Donnelly also confirmed that €1m in funding will be dedicated to an annual awareness campaign.
Mr Donnelly said that he is not against children being on social media platforms, but that companies will be punished or forced to introduce age restrictions if they do not make their platforms safe.
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