The new media regulator is working on a code of conduct for social media companies, which will be in place by the end of the year
Executives at social media companies will be held personally accountable for harmful content on their platforms, under new codes of conduct due later this year.
Coimisiún na Meán, which is Ireland's new media regulator, is working on a code of conduct for social media companies, which will be in place by the end of the year, according to the Taoiseach.
Simon Harris said Ireland was "ahead of many, many other European countries in our work in relation to this, and later this year, you'll see binding codes in place that will ... hit these companies where it hurts if they don't abide by the code, which is in the pocket, and will also have an ability to hold directors personally responsible because essentially, these social media companies aren't actually faceless, as people who make a hell of a lot of money from them and that's fine, but they also do need to abide by the laws of the land and accept their responsibility".
Mr Harris was asked about a threat made to him and his family via an Instagram post at the weekend.
The social media platform took two days to remove the post, despite a request by An Garda Síochána.
While the Taoiseach would not be drawn on the threats made to him personally, he said: "It's totally unacceptable, that any... media platform; digital, online, print would allow a threat towards anybody remain for a significant period of time, because one of the concerns that I think not just I have but I think people right across the country have, is the speed at which information gets shared online."
Mr Harris said that speaking to parents in his own constituency of Wicklow, cyber bullying was a huge problem for their children.
"So, there is a responsibility...that online media providers have to make sure they act with speed, and quite frankly, in a general sense, they're not living up to that obligation at all."
"It's just utterly unacceptable that any post towards any person, young, old, public figure, private figure, inciting violence would be left there for a period of time because as you know, it's not just that it stays there in a static location. It gets shared and shared and shared hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times in some locations."
Mr Harris said he would convene a meeting of the various stakeholders in the short term to see what more could be done.
Coimisiún na Meán said it spoken to Instagram's owner Meta over the threat and added it is assessing Meta's "compliance with their obligations under the EU Digital Services Act".
It said it will be following up with Meta "to seek further information about the circumstances of this incident and their response".
'Imperative' social media firms remove threats quickly
Earlier, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said it is "absolutely imperative" that social media companies take threats to anyone seriously and that such content is removed as quickly as possible.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms McEntee said it was "absolutely appalling" that any kind of a threat would be made against the Taoiseach, "but in particular that his wife and children would also be included in that threat."
"Whether it's a threat made online or in person it's no less serious nor is it taken any less seriously," the minister added.
Meta, the company which owns Instagram, has now removed the content for violating its policies and is investigating.
On the approach by social media companies to handling threats, Ms McEntee said that the era of self-regulation is over.
She said Ireland is now one of the few countries to have an online safety commissioner and their role and sole focus is to make sure that where there is harmful and illegal content online, that social media companies "play their part and where they don't, that there are serious penalties imposed."
She added that Coimisiún na Meán has been established recently and is working through a code of practice, which will be finalised or fully implemented by the end of the year.
The minister said that gardaí do work closely with social media companies and that while there has been engagement, more remains to be done.
She highlighted that one challenge in making complaints to such companies is that the complaint may not meet a certain threshold.
"We need to make sure through these codes of conduct that where a certain threshold has been met... where something is very clearly a crime, to threaten someone online, it is just as serious as doing it in person, so it shouldn’t be taking social media companies any length of time to take down something that is clearly identified as a criminal offence.
Helen McEntee said Coimisiún na Meán will have a code of practice complete by the end of the year
"We wouldn't have set up Coimisiún na Meán if there wasn't an issue here or there wasn't a problem here."
Asked if she agreed with Tánaiste Micheál Martin who, in referencing recent unrest in Britain and Northern Ireland, said that he believed that X and its owner Elon Musk were problematic, Ms McEntee said she was not going to comment on individuals, but added that social media companies and platforms have a lot to answer for.
Ms McEntee said that more focus needed to be taken on tackling algorithms which send people "down a rabbit hole".
"You don’t see other types of influences or information and so often people then become focused on particular issues without listening to mainstream media and getting different points of view and that has resulted in so much of the conflict that we see online," Ms McEntee said.
"There is much more that we need to do not just in Ireland but globally to ensure that social media companies do not have such a hold and the ability to create these tunnels that people go down which can lead them to have very dangerous views."
Mask legislation may be in place within months
The minister also said that legislation to ban the wearing of masks at protests could be implemented within a number of months.
She said she had been working with the attorney general and her team to bring forward proposals on banning mask-wearing at protests, adding that she wanted the legislation to be implemented in the new term as soon as possible.
"It is very clear there is a difference between somebody heading to work on a cold winter's morning covering their face from the cold as opposed to somebody standing threatening gardaí or outside somebody's home threatening them," she said, adding nobody should be able to intimidate without being identified.