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LAST UPDATE | 18 hrs ago
CHILDREN ARE BEING bombarded online by so-called AI girlfriend porn apps, which are “grooming” boys to perpetrate sexual violence and girls to accept such behaviour.
Sexualised images of women and children generated by Grok AI continue to be shared on Elon Musk’s X – a trend that is reported to have gone viral over the new year period. The European Commission commented earlier this week that it was “very seriously” looking into complaints that Grok was being used to generate and disseminate explicit childlike images.
Meanwhile, Eoghan Cleary, researcher with the Sexual Exploitation and Policy Institute (SERP) at UCD, who is conducting research on the exposure of Irish children to pornography, said that these AI technologies were “supercharging” the already increasing violence in adult pornography.
“We regularly hear from 15- and 16- year old students that they have been targeted with advertisements for AI girlfriends and nudification apps on all of the spaces they go online, not just X- but TikTok, and Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube, TV and film streaming websites and platforms.”
This toxic and destructive online influence has now filtered down into schools and homes. Misogyny and harassment of female teachers in schools were raised repeatedly in 2025, by teaching unions and other stakeholders, as an issue across Ireland. Tackling this effectively means addressing children and young teens’ ability to access harmful content online — including pornography.
Rising societal misogyny is one more reason to challenge tech moguls and protect children from exposure to algorithm — driven social media.
Last May, an RTE Prime Time programme examined how online influencers who promote a negatively distorted form of masculinity may be shaping Irish teenagers’ views of the world. Several teachers stated they were personally subjected to behaviour they perceived to be linked to narratives and views promoted by influencers online and contained within pornography.
These views are reflected in research by the European Movement Ireland, which found that modern far-right groups in Ireland target young men and boys by combining racist and anti-migrant attitudes with violent misogyny.
New resources have been made available to provide guidance to schools, teachers and parents on how to address the impact of online masculinity influencers on children, particularly teenage boys, across Ireland.
This material has been developed in response to influencers such as Andrew Tate, who attract huge audiences of young teens through sexual and misogynistic language.
While these resources are useful, surely the response should be aligned with legislation to protect young male teens from being able to access this harmful content online.
It is clear that in the current climate of shifting attitudes and uncertainty, there is a need to challenge tech moguls and protect children from algorithm-driven social media that includes grooming, pornography and misogyny.
France has taken a bold step by announcing its intention to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from next September. The draft bill is now complete and contains two measures: a ban on social media for under 15s and a ban on mobile phones in high schools, where 15-to-18 year olds study.
Will Ireland have the political gumption to challenge the billionaire digital oligarchs and do the same?
In one of his last statements of 2025, Tánaiste Simon Harris said that the Government will lead calls for the introduction of ID-verified social media accounts in the coming year. He said that his Fine Gael Cabinet colleague, Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan, is bringing ‘very exciting proposals’ to introduce an Australia-style ban on children accessing social media ‘during our presidency of the Council of the European Union next year.’
‘Very exciting proposals are being brought forward by Patrick O’Donovan around age verification,’ the Tánaiste is reported to have said, ‘which I think is important — that we have a digital age of consent. We’ve age requirements in our country for so many things. You can’t buy a pint before a certain age. You can’t drive a car before a certain age. You can’t place a bet before a certain age.
‘We have a digital age of consent in Ireland, which is 16, but it’s simply not being enforced. And I think that’s a really important move.’
Such a proposal has the potential to boost childhood and teen self-esteem, mental health and independence while freeing them from exposure to bullying, grooming, hardcore pornography and misogyny.
Moves to enforce age verification of social media and introduce age restrictions will require changes to the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). This will inevitably lead to further sustained attacks from the US Trump administration and global tech giants.
But many voices in Europe are moving in a similar direction.
‘This isn’t just Ireland’s view,’ Simon Harris said. ‘If you look at the comments of Emmanuel Macron… or Keir Starmer… recently, in terms of being open to considering what Australia have done, if you look at the actions of Australia, this is a global conversation Ireland will and should be part of.’
Already, we know the US tech moguls and their supporters are not happy. When X was levied with a fine of €120m at the beginning of December, Elon Musk called for the dismantling of the EU, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it an attack “on all American tech platforms and the American people” and “the days of censoring Americans online are over.”
But global online regulators are finally beginning to show their mettle – and not before time.
A paper, just published in the Irish Journal of Medical Science, outlines the stark reality of the impact of social media on teenagers. The researchers set up four dummy accounts on TikTok. They set their ages as being 13 to 15 years and started scrolling.
In their cumulative 23 hours viewing as 13 to 15-year-olds, the researchers found 3,023 videos presented to them. Of those, 128 videos (4.2%) violated TikTok’s own safety policies.
Aside from briefly pausing to watch clips on conflict, mental health, drugs and alcohol, and diet/ body image, they didn’t like, follow or comment or interact with anything. They just recorded what was presented to them. If you are still in any doubt about what teenagers are viewing, the results confirm our worst fears about the alarming content that is being directed towards adolescents.
The most frequent types of harmful content displayed included depictions of suicide or self-harm, disordered or extreme eating and promotion of alcohol.
The findings of the Irish study contribute to the growing body of evidence that ‘even passive viewing on TikTok can result in algorithmic exposure to unsafe material, raising questions about the platform’s adherence to its own safety policies,’ the researchers said.
The Irish researchers suggest that platform – level regulation needs to be aligned with psychological and educational interventions, including promotion of co-viewing, screen time boundaries, and open dialogue – an approach that has been shown to reduce digital harm.
The study clearly shows that voluntary compliance is not good enough when commercial incentives predominate over the need for user protection. Fifteen-year-olds are being exposed to harmful content online on TikTok even without active engagement, highlighting the urgent need for stronger regulatory enforcement and digital health education.
We are making progress, but it is too slow. It is clear that what is needed is structural accountability from online platforms aligned with coordinated public health strategies that acknowledge the particular susceptibility of adolescents to misogynistic, addictive and emotionally charged content, including pornography.
Will 2026, during Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, be the year that this huge public health harm is finally addressed?
Dr Catherine Conlon is a senior medical officer in the Department of Public Health, HSE, Cork.
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