Ceann Comhairle warns legislation might be needed to deal with social media abuse

Vivienne Clarke

Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl has warned that if social media platforms do not exercise “common decency” then “legislation will have to become a factor.”

“You cannot have a situation in which people are pilloried.

"You have, on the one hand social media organisations talking about freedom of speech and then when somebody expresses a view, there is this massive pile on of abuse and terror and threats unleashed upon them,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

Mr Ó Fearghaíl was commenting on the results of a report of the Task Force on Safe Participation in Political Life report and the findings of a UCD survey on the abuse and harassment of members of the Houses of the Oireachtas and their staff.

“What we have is a firm proposal from them that we must have an implementation team, which will be established in the month of July and which will continue in existence to oversee the detailed implementation of these recommendations.

"But the recommendations that we have cover government departments, cover the Oireachtas, our dealings with the Garda Siochana,  NGOs and so on. But what needs to be done stretches way beyond that.”

Mr Ó Fearghaíl added that it was unfortunate that some “appalling” activities were being tolerated on social media platforms.

When asked how the social media companies were going to be ‘reined in’, the Ceann Comhairle said he hoped they would engage with the Government.

“If common decency is not going to prevail, then I think legislation has to become a factor in the approach to all of this. You cannot have a situation in which people are pilloried.”

Some topics were being avoided by politicians because of the fear that they would be “piled on” and this was affecting their ability to do their work, he said.

“We can't have that, we just have to change.”