TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS has said existing laws should be implemented before new legislation around social media is considered.

Yesterday, Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy said that fake profiles on social media spreading false narratives must be tackled.

Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics yesterday afternoon, Murphy said that threats against politicians is something that can’t be ignored any longer.

Murphy said she hopes to bring party leaders to a meeting soon around the issue and added that “we need to advance legislatively in order to safeguard the public as a whole”.

She said she would like to see new laws to address fake profiles on social media.

There has been a spate of violent threats against Harris and his family recently, including bomb threats made in relation to his family home.

Speaking to reporters in New York as UN High Level Week begins, Harris said he “welcomes” Murphy’s “leadership” and her proposal to convene party leaders, something he will intend.

As the Dáil reconvened last week, Murphy referred to an alarming rise in serious threats against elected representatives and “challenges” posed by unverified accounts on social media.

Harris said he thought it was “very important” that Murphy made these remarks at the start of a new Dáil term.

“In relation to threats regarding myself and my own family – it’s me today, someone else tomorrow,” said Harris.

However, he said it would be “really good if we could see the laws that we have actually implemented”.

“It is illegal to threaten to kidnap somebody’s child, or to carry out sexual violence against somebody, or to ring five or six different garda stations and threaten to blow up somebody’s home,” said Harris.

“There are already a lot of laws and it’s really important that laws are enforced, and I don’t mean in relation to my own case, but more broadly, that these issues are taken strong.”

Harris added that there is a “broader point” Murphy is making and the Tánaiste questioned the efficacy of social media age verification.

“We live in a country where the digital age of consent is 16,” said Harris, “but does anybody really believe that people much younger than 16 aren’t on social media?”

He also hit out at anonymous social media accounts that “start sending abuse and threatening material to people” and the difficulty around trying to find out who is behind the account.

Harris said that he and Taoiseach Micheál Martin intend to meet shortly with Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán around issues with social media.

“I have an open mind on this,” said Harris, “but I do think there’s existing laws that need to be enforced and that the Ceann Comhairle has reignited an interesting and important conversation.”

Elsewhere, Harris voiced concern that social media regulation is like a “wild west” and criticised the fact that there are different laws in different countries.

He said EU member states have “a lot of powers under the Digital Services Act” but added: “If anybody was to have the solutions to these challenges it’s the tech companies, and they’re just choosing not to do it.

“There’s absolutely no reason why tech companies, who presumably know a fair bit about AI analytics, couldn’t be using technological solutions to keep our kids safe online, and ensure that the general space online is a safer space for people.”

He called for tech companies to “step up to the plate”.

“There might be a need to do more at a European level, but I also think we’re in a space where the companies need to take action, where governments will have to consider what to do,” said Harris.

“And a really simple one would be the age verification; if we decide in Ireland that the digital agent consent of 16, who are any of these digital media companies to decide something else.” 

-With additional reporting from Christina Finn