Online Safety (Recommender Algorithms) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-04
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

There is a gulf between words and actions here. The Minister of State said, and I would welcome it if it was true, that the Government is relentlessly committed to online safety, but that was part of a speech that was justifying why the Government is going to vote down this Bill. I repeat that the Bill is very simple and clear. It is an answer to the torrent of toxic material that is being fed to young people in particular. It is the answer that is being called for by a wide range of organisations and experts who have looked at this issue. In theory, it looks like the Government has a relentless commitment, but that is a commitment to protecting the profits of big tech companies. It is why, at a European level, they are not standing up against the big tech lobbying operation to further deregulate and undermine the levels of protections we have at a European level. Domestically, the Government is going to vote this down on the spurious basis that it is already dealing with it under the Digital Services Act. The Minister of State referred to Article 27 of the Digital Services Act and the requirement to mitigate risks, including to minors, and the requirement that very large platforms must give an option of algorithms that do not rely on profiling. Effectively, this is light-touch regulation and it may as well be self-regulation. The big tech companies can do what they want.
It is very interesting that in the senior Minister's speech, which we heard earlier, there was a line of argument that was pretty much directly taken from the tech companies' lobbying. The tech companies' lobbying that resulted in this proposal being taken out of the online safety code said that recommender systems play an important role in ensuring a safe, predictable and trusted online environment by ensuring that users are connected to relevant and high-quality information. The Minister stated that recommender systems and algorithms serve to protect people, including children and young people, from harmful content. The companies know that is not true. A report from Meta's internal research stated that 64% of all extremist group joins were due to its recommendation tools and that its recommendation systems grow the problem. A 2019 internal Meta document affirmed that content moderation was impossible and that the focus should instead be on stopping artificial amplification. The parallels with big tobacco are clear in terms of the harms being done to young people and the fact these people know all about it and know about the profits they are making from it.
The Minister said the algorithms are preferable to the unknown risk of switching off those recommender systems. That is bizarre. Deputy Albert Dolan, who is a backbench Fianna Fáil TD, precisely described what will happen if the algorithm system is turned off. We will go back to a space where our social media feeds are curated by us. We will get to choose who we see. We will have a wholesome space of seeing our friends, community, etc., as opposed to toxic, misogynistic content being fed to young people.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-04