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AN UPDATED DRAFT Online Safety Code has been criticised for not addressing “toxic” algorithms.
Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland’s online and broadcast media regulator, today published an updated draft following public consultation.
The final code will set binding rules that will apply to video-sharing platforms who have their EU Headquarters in Ireland.
Coimisiún na Meán has submitted the Code to the European Commission and once that process is complete, it will be applied later this year.
The final Code will be part of Coimisiún na Meán’s overall Online Safety Framework, which aims to make digital services legally accountable for how they protect people, especially children, from harm online.
The code will introduce obligations on video-sharing platforms that prohibit uploading or sharing harmful content, including cyberbullying.
It will also prohibit the promotion of self-harm or eating disorders, as well as prohibit incitement to hatred or violence.
The code will also require platforms to use age verification measures to prevent children from encountering pornography or violent videos.
It will also provide parental controls for content which may “impair the physical, mental, or moral development of children under 16”.
Coimisiún na Meán said the code will give it the tools to address the root causes of harm online, including the availability of illegal content, and inadequate protections for children on social media services.
The Online Safety Commissioner, Niamh Hodnett, said the updated Code “is an important step forward to hold platforms to account for keeping people safe online”.
However, the Code has been criticised by CyberSafeKids for not addressing “toxic” algorithms.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said it is “disappointed that measures to address toxic algorithms have been removed from the Online Safety Code”, and noted that a previous draft included requirements to turn off recommender systems.
The recommender system is an algorithm that uses data to suggest items that a social media user might be interested in.
An ICCL spokesperson said recommender systems “push hate and extremism into people’s feeds and inject content that glorifies self-harm and suicide into children’s feeds”.
ICCL Senior Fellow Dr Johnny Ryan called it a “dangerous U-turn” and added that social media users should be given the “freedom to decide for themselves whether they can be profiled and fed algorithmic content”.
It does indeed appear that @CNaM_ie has had its wings clipped by @ThierryBreton.
— Johnny Ryan (@johnnyryan) May 27, 2024
Ireland wanted to force tech firms to switch off toxic recommender algorithms by default (until users decide to switch them on) but was prevented by the European Commission. https://t.co/N9aJSx2Smz https://t.co/RiplS75n91 pic.twitter.com/Xs86JfA5Rx
And while CyberSafeKids welcomed the Code described it as a “landmark development”, it also expressed concern at “the fact this code does not address the recommender system”.
A spokesperson for CyberSafeKids, an Irish charity which works to help children, parents and teachers navigate the online world, said a lot of “harmful content coming through a child’s feed originates from this algorithm”.
The spokesperson added that at times, the social media feeds of children and young people are “overwhelmed” by harmful content, and they called for this to be “meaningfully addressed”.
The Code also prohibits platforms from processing children’s data for commercial reasons, but CyberSafeKids said it is concerned that video-sharing platforms “will find ways to circumvent this if possible”.
And when deciding on a user suspension, a video-sharing platform is obliged by the Code to assess cases in a “timely, diligent and objective manner”.
CyberSafeKids said this “lacks the specific parameters we believe are necessary”.
Online campaigning platform Uplift also criticised the Code for not addressing “toxic” algorithms.
Its director Siobhán O’Donoghue said this was an opportunity to “change to the rules for how suggested content is directed at social media users”.
“Turning off recommender systems by default would mean that these profit hungry platforms can’t just decide to flood teenage girls with weight loss content or push porn and gambling content at young men or abusive content targeting election candidates that spreads like wildfire on social media,” said O’Donoghue.
She said a move to “force” video-sharing platforms to “stop automatically sending content based on your personal information, and instead giving users the choice to decide what you, would have been a game changer”.
Too much profit in this algorithm. They will never turn this off we’ve all been victim to it in one way or the other the ” rabbit hole”
@Paul H: Exactly, they’re exploiting us thinking that immigration is now the solely big problem of Ireland, and not housing and health system; they are not making money from housing and health, but from fighting between us regarding immigration.
Cesspools like Meta seriously need to have much harsher penalties and sanctions for openly allowing and exposing disgusting and malicious content onto its platforms.
Ag yes, the EU; lover of corporates, disliker of its own citizens. Serious discussions needed around our future participation in the EU with the direction it seems to be headed
@Lewis Armstrong: where would we be without the EU. Clown
@Michael o Dwyer: We don’t need the EU.
@Michael o Dwyer: Better off that we are now! Able to set out own laws without interference; able to deport gimmigrants; able to save money (we are a net contributor to the EU and have been for years).
If tobacco didn’t exist and someone started trying to market it tomorrow it would be shut down straight away and rightly classified as hazardous. But because it does exist and has the all-powerful money invested in it you can’t outright ban it for fear of upsetting the elite, you can only try to reduce it’s market and hope it goes away,
Social Media is similar in that if someone brought out X/FB/Inst tomorrow and we know now what the effect of these platforms is going to be then most likely they would be rejected, by the citizenry anyway. But we didn’t reject them, or legislate for what powers they might have, and subsequently abuse, when they first started up, that was a job for the gov of the time. They are now multi-billion dollar industries and their power can’t be shutdown or easily controlled. They will always be steps ahead in harvesting new users no matter what rules are put in place.
The final nail in the coffin is politicians and political parties, here in Ireland and in most countries, have aligned themselves with social media because it has turned out to be great way of brainwashing the masses and winning elections. So the government(s) have no real reason to tackle this when to do so would be to their own detriment, unless we give them a reason to deal with it? They may not do brown envelopes anymore but the back-scratching corruption continues, to our detriment.
Finally, a little government like ours may not be able to bring in the necessary rules to stop social medias toxic side, but it could at first, decide to break the link between politics and social media by banning no FB pages, X profiles etc etc for parties and politicians and, at least, ending the cozy partnership they have.
We’re all fighting between us regarding immigration, and social media companies are poring billions (for real) in their profits. So now we all think that immigration is the only big important social issue in Ireland, when it’s not, it’s something that will be tackled more or less, etc, but then we will still have housing issues and health system issues. We are being played and what’s more important, a lot of us will spoil their vote because of that.
I am all for child protection. I think there needs be a redoubling of efforts. I cannot understand why the usual suspects objected to “The Sound Of Freedom”. Having said that, we need parameters and definition. What is harmful content exactly? Is the definition broad or narrow? Who exactly gets to decide? Are the adjudicators appointed or elected? A just a comment on the reporting above – we have to watch out for women and anorexia as well as men and porn. A cursory search will show that over 30% of those that watch porn are women and over 20% of those with anorexia are men. Just saying.
@Oh Mammy: Go on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter (refuse to call it X), and you will find out very quickly what the definition of “toxic” and “harmful” is.
Will someone please think of the children!
@Daniel – that a very nasty and obvious portion of it. It’s not really that part I am talking about.
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