Children as young as 10 'loopholing' usage rules by being on TikTok, committee hears

'No large-scale platform, at the size that we operating on, can realistically guarantee zero violations,' Susan Moss told the committee.

Parents are "scrambling" to keep up with the problems posed by social media, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Fine Gael senator Evanne Ní Chúilín made the claim during a joint Oireachtas media committee hearing on online safety which saw representatives of Google, Meta, and TikTok give evidence about their companies' safety mechanisms.

Ms Ní Chúilin said children as young as 10 and 11 are "loopholing" usage rules by being on TikTok. She said she is "not comfortable" that parents have been "empowered" by the social media platforms.

TikTok's head of public policy and government relations Susan Moss said no social media platform can guarantee complete safety.

"No large-scale platform, at the size that we operating on, can realistically guarantee zero violations," Ms Moss said.

"Our goal is to get it as close to zero as possible, but the harsh reality is it will never be zero ... as long as there are bad actors who are attempting to circumvent our processes. It will always be there," she said.

The meeting had been called largely in response to the use of X's Grok app to undress both adults and minors, but X declined an invitation to address the committee — a decision criticised by both members and witnesses.

Collected fines

Sinn Féin TD Joanna Byrne told the meeting that Ireland's Data Protection Commission had administered €4bn in fines on social media firms over the last four years, but just 0.6% of this has been collected. She criticised the use of recommender algorithm systems.

However, the director of public policy for Meta in Ireland, Dualta Ó Broin, said these are "not binary", and said turning them off wouldn't necessarily solve the issue of online safety.

Fine Gael senator Garret Ahearn asked Google why the Grok app was not pulled from its app store, to which public policy manager Ryan Meade said the material Grok was producing was “definitely not in line” with the terms of Google's store.

"When that was brought to our attention, we immediately brought it to the developers' attention," he said, adding the feature "was a product change that was made by that company to reduce the guardrails that were available in the app". 

Meta's safety policy director for Europe, Middle East, and Africa David Miles said his company's AI is trained not to produce pornographic images.

"We have taken legal action against nudification apps last year. It's very important that we pursue to make sure that it doesn't violate our community standards," he said.

Fine Gael TD Micheál Carrigy said ads on Meta for platforms such as OnlyFans are there to "drive people to pornographic material", while Independent senator Rónán Mullen told the witnesses that they are in the "psychological manipulation business".

Later in the Dáil, the Taoiseach and People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy clashed over the X ‘nudification’ scandal.

During leaders’ questions, Mr Murphy said he was not accusing the Government of condoning sexual abuse material generated on X. Instead, he claimed it did not wish to deal with the scandal.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin described Mr Murphy’s assertion as “reprehensible". He said there would be no tolerance for any platform hosting child sex abuse imagery.