ORGANISED CRIME GANGS are increasingly recruiting children via online gaming platforms, An Garda Síochána has said.

Speaking at a roundtable on online safety, An Garda Síochána’s communications director Andrew McLindon said that young people – especially those who are vulnerable – are being radicalised into a life of crime or terrorism through online gaming platforms. 

McLindon made the comments during a session of the Kennedy summer school, an annual history and culture festival in New Ross, Co Wexford, named after late US president John F. Kennedy.

This growing trend, which has largely been seen in Northern Europe, sees organised crime gangs (OCGs) recruiting young, vulnerable people and making the life of an OCG seem “glamorous”.

“Then what they do is they basically say to them: ‘We will give you $300. We will provide you with a gun. We want you to travel to another country.’

“This is the person we want you to shoot. We want you to shoot them, and we want you to video it.”

McLindon said that this trend is “hugely concerning”.

He also spoke of another abusive tactic, where “nihilistic” people and groups target individuals through online gaming platforms and influence them to self-harm and video themselves.

“These are people who don’t care about anybody else, don’t care about the individual.

“This is all done, unfortunately – and it really is horrific – as a competition. These nihilistic people are competing with each other to see how much harm they can inflict or get self-inflicted on a young child.”

McLindon said that online gaming platforms need to be “enforced”, with more focus in general on these platforms, which tend to get less attention than traditional social media.

What could also help, he said, is if online platforms were treated and legislated for as publishers, which would make platforms “change their behaviour” and also make it easier for gardaí to investigate. 

In the same way that publishers are held liable for the content they put out, social media companies could be held liable for the content on their platforms. This would be instead of the current system, whereby the platform is only held liable once someone flags harmful content to them or a regulator. 

“We need an organisation to have breached a piece of legislation. So, if there was… if that was regulated, that would make it easier to investigate, certainly,” McLindon said.

The roundtable discussion, titled ‘Children, Clicks and Consequences: Online Safety in a Digital Age’, was held ahead of children returning to school in September.

The issue is becoming increasingly urgent as children gain access to smartphones and other devices at younger ages. Recent research by NGO CyberSafeKids has found that 39% of children aged 8 to 12 own their own smartphone, rising to 66% by the age of 12.

The research also found that 26% of primary school children and 36% of secondary school children had experienced online content or unsolicited contact that bothered them, including exposure to violence, sexual material, threats, scams and dangerous ideas.

Speaking at the roundtable, Dr Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children, said that what is key is incorporating children’s rights into digital policy. This, he said, would involve incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into legislation.

This would mean that anyone involved in online safety would need to have a child’s rights impact assessment.

“Instead of spending energy keeping us offline and away from social media you should spend your energy keeping social media away from us,” he said. 

A social media ban was also discussed, with Dr Gillian Kennedy, board member at NGO Transparency International, describing it as very “reactionary”.

She drew the analogy with someone drowning, saying that while drowning is dangerous, “would you ban a child from doing swimming lessons? No, is the answer.”

“The truth is the kids are online, they’re going to be online continuously, even if you ban social media.”

“Even if you ban phone usage, their peers are going to have phones. So it’s about educating them.”

If you have been affected by any of the issues mentioned in this article, you can reach out for support through the following helplines. These organisations also put people in touch with long-term supports:

• Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
• Text About It – text HELLO to 50808 (mental health issues)
• Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
• Pieta House 1800 247 247 or text HELP to 51444 – (suicide, self-harm)
• Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
• Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)