Social media companies and politicians clash over potential ban for teenagers

By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association

Social media companies and politicians have clashed over a potential ban on social media use for teenagers.

Representatives for Meta, Google, and TikTok appeared before an Oireachtas communications committee on Wednesday afternoon.

Senator Ronan Mullen asked if the companies have any objection to a ban on children under the age of 16 using social media.

None agreed with such a policy.

This was followed up by Senator Alison Comyn, who said following Australia’s lead that countries including France, Spain, Greece, New Zealand, India, and the United Kingdom are either introducing a ban or debating bringing one in.

Ms Comyn asked the companies if the governments of these countries were wrong.

TikTok’s Susan Moss said they “don’t agree with blunt instruments” but would consider supporting the “introduction of a measure that is done at a European level”.

Speaking on behalf of Google, Chole Setter said: “We absolutely understand and hear the concerns, but we don’t think that is the right approach.”

David Miles, of Meta, said: “It’s probably too early to say, some of these bans are only just coming into place or being considered.”

When asked if the companies would offer ways of bypassing such a law if one came in, Dualta Ó Broin, who also works for Meta said: “We will certainly not offer ways of bypassing the law.

He added: “We support a digital majority age, but we also support that under that age, parents should be empowered to decide whether their teens can or cannot access.”

All three organisations argued there are benefits to teenagers accessing social media.

Mr Miles said: “I think all young people have a right to participate online in a healthy way, whether they’re interests, connecting with friends, school, education, it’s a huge plethora of things that they really benefit from.

“By banning them from that they then have no access to that online, they’re not developing online development skills in social media.”

Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn criticised the emphasis put forward by the social media organisations on parental responsibility and control.

She compared them to tobacco companies, saying if those companies had offered “parental guides” for their products it would be “an absolute farce”.

Ms Ní Chuilin said phones are needed for school, adding she is “concerned about the narrative of parents having control” given the “insane amount of technology” phones contain.

She said there are 10 and 11-year-olds “completely loopholing everything” and “seeing stuff that they should not be seeing”.

Ms Setter, Google’s child safety public policy manager, said a ban could lead to a “false sense of security”.

She said: “We may well see kids going to other less safe platforms which have not had the decade’s worth of investment and resource and child expertise built into them.”

Speaking before the committee, Tánaiste Simon Harris described a ban on under-16s being on social media as a “North Star”.

He added: “I think we’re approaching a public health emergency.

“Our children are not guinea pigs and yet their brains, their health, their wellbeing, their mental health, their anxiety levels, are effectively being experimented upon by technology companies, and that causes a significant concern.”

He said he had had an engagement with a number of his European counterparts over the weekend to see “if we can move at a European level” and “that’s why we want to make this a priority for our EU presidency”.

The Taoiseach said the Government would “examine the practicalities” of a ban.

But Micheál Martin said there is a “parallel track” possible consisting of age verification and “stronger tools to protect children to be deployed by companies themselves”.

He also said young people need to be equipped to deal with social media “because as you grow in life and move out of school and into the world, you do need to have capacities to deal with online media”.