The Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media has written to a number of social media platforms in relation to the "acts of aggression" being undertaken by Russia on the Ukraine.
Committee Chair, Deputy Niamh Smyth said the committee recognised and valued both the right to freedom of expression, and the importance of access to trustworthy information in a democratic society.
She has asked the social media platforms and other online services to do all they can to ensure, the monitoring, moderating and swift removal of, material that promotes misinformation, and material that incites violence.
Deputy Smyth highlighted how the platforms must fulfil their social responsibility towards users and society in general by enforcing community standards.
“The Committee acknowledge too efforts undertaken to date across platforms to address the spread of misinformation relating to the deeply disturbing events unfolding in Ukraine," she added.
"The Committee called for the platforms to take immediate action and review all necessary algorithms, particularly the search and recommendation algorithms, to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation which stands against democracy.
“The Committee calls once more on all platforms to fulfil their social responsibility towards both platform users and society in general, to enforce any applicable community standards to this end.”
