Social Media Giants Face Grilling Over Handling of Illegal Content

Representatives from Google, Meta, and TikTok are set to defend their platforms' records of policing illegal content at an upcoming Oireachtas committee hearing. The hearing comes after the recent deaths of five teenagers in a crash on the M9 motorway, which highlighted concerns about the presence of joyriding and dangerous driving footage on social media.

TikTok's head of public policy and government relations, Susan Moss, and global head of policy, trust and safety, Zachary Hecht, will appear before the committee. They plan to say that content promoting criminal or dangerous behaviour has 'no place on social media' and that their platform removes thousands of posts under its dangerous activity policy.

According to TikTok's data, 99.6% of removed posts were taken down proactively before being reported by users. Additionally, 83.4% of these removals occurred before the content was viewed, and 88.9% were removed within 24 hours of publication.

Meta Ireland's director of public policy, Dualta Ó Broin, will also testify that the tech giant does not allow users to post imagery depicting high-risk viral challenges on its platforms. In response to recent events, Meta is now treating driving against incoming traffic as a prohibited high-risk viral challenge.

Google Ireland's government affairs and public policy manager, Ryan Meade, will state that content glorifying or depicting extremely dangerous driving is strictly prohibited on YouTube. He will also highlight the platform's proactive enforcement approach, which resulted in over 98.5% of removed videos being first detected by automated systems.