Taoiseach expresses concern about young people navigating social media

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that while he does not let online abuse get to him, he worries about younger people navigating social media.

Speaking to The Echo, Mr Martin said that while abusive replies to his social media posts don’t upset him, he sees them as indicative of a coarsening of public discourse.

“I read some of them for different motivation,” he said. 

“First of all, where are they coming from? Is there an agenda? Some of them are bots, but it’s interesting. People use social media for a purpose, to undermine, too, you know?

“No matter what you put out, it’ll be the same attack line: ‘Treason’, ‘traitor’, whatever. 

“It’s a coarseness to the public space that I really worry about. I’m not impacted by it, but I do reflect on where is the space for debate, where is the space for engagement?”

Mr Martin said he did not expect everybody to agree with him or his politics, and he fully appreciates and respects people’s right to strongly disagree with him, but he felt there is a need for respectful debate in public life.

“We should all accept that there’s a lot more grey in life than black and white, and that grey space is being narrowed, in terms of an appreciation of life and what it entails,” he said.

“There’s a complexity to life, to human nature, that’s being written out of the equation by this type of social media commentary and hardness and coarseness and language.”

Mr Martin rejected recent criticism by Johnny Ryan, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, who said that the EU and Ireland have not been strong enough in standing up to the Big Tech platforms.

“I would disagree, and the technology companies would, too, [given] their angst about European regulation, and, in fact, in Washington recently, the digital companies were quite strong in respect of the Digital Services Act, and the whole panoply of regulation,” he said.

The Taoiseach said the independent data regulator had been “quite robust” in enforcing existing law, and imposing heavy fines and penalties on tech giants.

“I can tell you, there is a very strong debate going on between Europe and the United States at the moment,” he said.

“I mean, Europe is one of the few places that actually has regulation. It’s a bastion of civility and democracy compared to other jurisdictions.

“At least we have a regulatory framework in Europe, with two substantial acts; we have Coimisiún na Meán now as well.

“I do think we need to protect children more. 

“Some of that is within our hands, in terms of the ban we introduced last year on the use of mobile phones in school time.”

“Kids need to be educated on how to deal with all of this, and that’s a very important part of the curriculum into the future, how you navigate the new media,” Mr Martin said.

“It’s the age-old conflict between advancing technology and the responsibility of the State to protect people, but at the same time to allow progress.”