A court ruling in the United States has found that Meta and Google deliberately designed social media platforms in such a way that they are harmful to children and young people.
Now, Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney has said the Irish government must take action to tackle the addictive nature of AI-boosted social media algorithms in Ireland.
Gibney, who sits on the Oireachtas AI Committee, said that the findings of the court “tells us three things we already knew from our daily experience of social media: tech companies create products which are addictive and harmful; their business model relies on that addictive element; and that they should be held to account for the harm their products have caused.”
Referring to the case, Gibney said that jurors in the case deemed Meta and Google “acted with malice, oppression, or fraud” in the way the companies operated their platforms, which include Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube.
“Yet here in Ireland, our government and regulators have been unwilling to stand up to Big Tech, even when there is a blatant breach of the law, like the recent production of image-based sexual abuse material by Twitter’s AI, Grok.
“We don’t need the goverment to parrot lines of reassurance from the PR departments of Big Tech, we need them to push back and protect citizens,” the Dublin Rathdown TD said.
“During a recent meeting of the Oireachtas media committee, I asked Meta, Google, and TikTok: ‘are your algorithms designed to keep our eyes on the screen, to support addictive responses to your product?’ I got three different word salad answers in response,” she claimed.
“We now have a US court ruling to add to the leaked internal research, external academic studies and, of course, the experiences of anyone who has ever doomscrolled. It is clear that social media platforms are designed to be addictive. The path forward is also clear.”
Gibney said that recommender algorithms must be turned off by default, and the government must oppose the digital omnibus, EU legislation which “slashes tech regulation and allows Big Tech to exploit us and our children even more.”
“As was stated by Dr Abebe Birhane of Trinity College Dublin, the tech sector should not get special treatment. If car seat manufacturers, food and drug producers, and makers of products in all other sectors, are held to standards that require safety to be established before they try out their products on the public, why not Big Tech?” she asked.
“This court ruling must act as a wake-up call for the government. We must legislate, regulate, enforce and, where necessary, prosecute to put an end to these dangers,” Gibney said.