TikTok is to be brought before the Oireachtas Media Committee, following Sunday's crash, a TD has confirmed.
Five teenagers died after they decided to drive the wrong way up the M9, resulting in a head-on collision with another car.
The three women in the vehicle and a young boy are all still in hospital, having been seriously injured.
In the wake of the crash, Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly said the boys were perhaps influenced by a desire for “social media likes”.
The crash on the M9. Picture by: Eamon Farrell/RollingNews.ie.Although social media platforms are required to take down content of illegal activities, TikTok is replete with videos of dangerous driving.
Coimisiún na Meán has written to TikTok asking for a “full account” of why it hosts content portraying illegal activities and said it remains “in close contact with An Garda Síochána”.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Sinn Féin TD and Oireachtas Media Committee member Joanna Byrne said she is ‘hugely concerned’ about illegal content on social media platforms.
“Bad online activity is not confined to individual bad actors,” she said.
“But it is also complemented and driven by platform design choices and with models that maximise engagement and kind of glorifies bad behavior for increased and enhanced likes and shares and engagement with the platform.
“We've also seen that there's insufficient regulatory enforcement.”
View this post on Instagram
TikTok has insisted that the vast majority of content which portrays illegal activity is taken down before it is even reported to them.
However, Deputy Byrne said that fact underlines that the “small bit that doesn't get taken down as quickly as it needs to can have a domino effect”.
The Sinn Féin TD also noted that social media platforms can be fined millions if they are found to have failed to protect users from harmful or illegal content.
“We live in an online based society where we work online, we socialise online and all of this bad behaviour needs to be choked at the start to ensure that it doesn't roll out, blow out, amplify and evolve,” she said.
In the wake of the crash, members of An Garda Síochána have begun specialist pursuit training with Devon and Cornwall Police in England.
Once fully trained, they will be able to instruct their own colleagues in how to engage in pursuit driving.
It is something Deputy Byrne said Sinn Féin strongly supports.
“I certainly think any common sense approach for anybody involved in public life would be to ensure that our Gardaí are sufficiently trained,” she said.
“They have all the resources they need to tackle bad behaviour that is resulting in the loss of lives on our roads.
“The intricacies of the policies would be something for our justice spokesperson, but I certainly can assure you that we will be supportive of our Gardaí being fully resourced to ensure that they can manage the criminal behaviour that's costing lives on our roads and anywhere in our society.”
Main image: The aftermath of the crash on the M9. Picture by: Eamon Farrell/RollingNews.ie
