Departmental Reports
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Taoiseach's Government and governments around the world have an important choice to make. The choice is whether the profits of big tech corporations are going to come before the health and safety of our children. For now, these interests are counterposed. We saw it in a stark way in the mass production of child sexual abuse imagery and sexual abuse imagery of women on Grok. There was a protest outside the offices of X at the weekend. I know the Taoiseach previously heralded AI as akin to the industrial revolution or the printing press. This is how it is being used by the big tech corporations. A big question is whether we will follow the original advice from Coimisiún na Meán to turn off the toxic algorithms on social media. They are algorithms made to maximise eyeballs on the screen, to maximise profits, and which push hateful, misogynistic, suicidal material, and eating disorders on young people. Does the Taoiseach agree that we should turn off the toxic algorithms? We will introduce a Bill to do that on Thursday.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20