Dr Johnny Ryan, Senior Fellow at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties discussed what the historical Google and Meta rulings mean for Ireland.

Google and Meta have been ruled liable for creating platforms that pose risks to children and teenagers, in a landmark decision that could compel tech companies to reconsider how they respond to safety-related claims.

They were found liable for designing platforms that are dangerous for children and for teens.

In what was a landmark verdict in the States in two courts, it may well turn out to be a turning point in the backlash against the platforms. 

It remains unclear if similar cases will be seen in Ireland in the coming years. 

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has said that if the state were not blocking them from taking such cases, they'd already be doing it. 

Dr. Johnny Ryan, Director of Enforce at the Irish Council of Civil Liberties told The Pat Kenny Show on Sunday that the trial was the ‘big tobacco moment’ for Meta.

“They were shown to know the harm that they're doing and to do it anyway”, Mr Ryan told Newstalk. 

“They picked profit over children's health. It was no surprise that they were going to have their day in court and it was going to be a bad one.

“The surprise is that this is a landmark case in the US because it changes the kind of litigation you can do there.

“That's a surprise because we should have been doing them here already.”

Children play with a mobile phone. Picture by: Alamy.com

Currently, Irish law does not allow for public interest groups to raise funds to take cases against corporations. 

There is a new class action system in Europe under a directive called the Collective Redress Directive which allows for public interest groups to take litigation on behalf of victims. 

However, when the Irish state put that European directive into Irish law, it did not provide the legal way that funds could be raised to take those cases.

The Google and Meta ruling could change things for Ireland.

“The new law says you can take class actions against these companies”, he summarised. 

“But the Irish implementation of that law still prohibits us from raising the very, very large part of cash for litigation to actually do that”, he added. 

He explained that Ireland was an anomaly in Europe, as only Greece has a similar system in place currently. 

Offices of Google in Dublin. Photo by PAUL FAITH.

“Organisations like us, we are also to an extent paralysed because we can't take all the cases we need to. So we have pioneered this class action.

“We have a case against Microsoft but every parent knows that an awful lot more needs to be happening.

Asked about the implications of the case for the United States, Mr Ryan said that if the case spurred reform in the United States, it would spur on reform in Ireland. 

“We will take it wherever we can get it”, he said. 

“We have litigated in the United States, and we found it can be quite a useful theatre.”

Main Image: Meta logo.