Children 'come first' over tax revenues from social media giants, says minister

Peter Burke says it's 'not good enough' that online videos featuring teenagers driving dangerously are circulating

The scene on the M9 in Co Kildare where five teenagers were killed in a horror crash on Sunday. 

Children “come first” over tax revenues from social media giants, the enterprise minister said, after a spate of online videos featuring teenagers driving dangerously.

Peter Burke said “very extreme” content has “been allowed to sit there for protracted periods of time”, adding that this was “not good enough” at a time when social media companies were “shedding staff”.

There has been renewed focus on the matter after five teenagers were killed in a horror crash on Sunday in Co Kildare.

The teenagers died after the car they were travelling in was driven the wrong way down the M9 and involved in a head-on collision with another car.

They have been named locally as Joe Carthy, Jack Kennedy, Alex McCarthy, Jeremy O’Brien, and Kamil Pustkowski.

A child and three women from the same family, who were in the other car, are being treated for serious injuries in hospital.

Mr Burke said: “I’ve been very clear, irrespective of what tax revenue comes in from any social media company, our children are first.

“It is so important to me that we handle this robustly. 

"We give the social media company the opportunity, obviously, to appear before the Oireachtas, but critically they have in their purview, in their power, to take down these videos.

“You see a lot of these social media companies shedding staff, shedding numbers, and yet this content seems to be ever-growing that’s appearing on them.

“And anecdotal evidence seems to be that it’s very extreme and it’s been allowed to sit there for protracted periods of time to gain likes and gain interactions from other peers in the community, and frankly, that’s not good enough, and we need to take action.” 

Enterprise minister Peter Burke says action needs to be taken. 

Media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has sought a “full account” of how TikTok is dealing with reports of illegal or harmful content on its platform, with the authority adding it is in “close contact” with An Garda Síochána.

TikTok has also been invited to appear before the Oireachtas media committee on September 23 to address issues on how it deals with content that “glorifies illegal activity”.

The video-sharing platform says it has removed all the flagged content and banned accounts which violate its policies against criminal behaviour.

It also said it removes content that glorifies violence and promotes crime that could harm others, while limiting the spread of material which encourages unsafe behaviour, including risky driving.

Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook, has policies to restrict users under 18 from seeing imagery depicting real-life dangerous driving likely to cause injury, as well as prohibiting content promoting criminal or harmful activities such as high-risk viral challenges.

Snap was contacted for comment.