The Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) has called on social media platform Meta to build safer products and systems and to engage with Coimisiún na Meán in its investigation into its practices.
On Tuesday, Coimisiún na Meán announced it was investigating Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook to see if they have breached provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to provide information and transparent options with regard to content recommender feeds.
In a statement, the commission said the move followed initial assessments by its platform supervision team and reviews of complaints made to it.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, the CRA’s online safety coordinator Noeline Blackwell said at present, when anybody goes online, the platform they use gets information about them which can be used to build a profile. This should not be used to push new material at people unless they want it, she said.
READ MORE
“People should be able to switch that off easily. The concern that the regulator has, and that they’re investigating, is that the company is using children’s and young people’s profiles in particular to push information at them.
“So they might be looking at something that they genuinely want to look at, but that the information that they get from the company after that might not be in their best interest and might not be suitable and might be harmful.”
Such information could take people “down rabbit holes”, she warned.
“Look, that doesn’t only happen to children and young people. Lots of people can go down rabbit holes, can find that they have an interest in one thing, and they’re fed more and more information, and that they get into a stage where they could end up getting anxious about something.
[ Instagram and Facebook are being investigated over content recommender systemsOpens in new window ]
“These companies are very big, profitable companies. They are an industry themselves. They want to make money.” EU regulations require companies to operate in a safe way, she added.
“In the Children’s Rights Alliance, we always say there’s almost nothing in the European Union that you can do without a Certificate of Safety about it. These are the exceptions. So this is where, when the companies are not behaving in a way that is safe, then the regulator can come in.
“The regulator isn’t the fastest operator in the world. It’s not the quickest, but it can be the most comprehensive. And it is what, if Coimisiún na Meán investigates this, finds that these dark patterns are in fact being applied, they can hold the company accountable. And the problem in some ways is that Meta is saying, again, nothing to see here.
“Meta will insist on fair processes. There will be a preliminary finding of fact. And what would be really great would be if Meta would engage with this. And instead of saying, as they are doing, nothing to see here, if they would actually say, we can build a safer system. Because that’s really what the industry needs to do, is build safe products and systems.”
Responding to the announcement of the investigation on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Meta said: “We disagree with any suggestion that we have breached the DSA. We have introduced substantial changes to our processes and systems to meet our regulatory obligations, and will engage with Coimisiún na Meán to share details of this work.”
