Social media companies ‘endangering’ society by failing to remove content depicting illegal activity

The incident has drawn commentary about videos of children driving dangerously circulating on social media platforms

Social media companies are “endangering” society by failing to remove content depicting dangerous and illegal activity, a government minister in the Republic has said.

There has been increased attention on social media regulation in the week after five teenagers died when the car in which they were travelling the wrong way down the M9 motorway collided head-on with another vehicle, seriously injuring three women and a boy in the same family.

There was further tragedy on Sunday in England when two men and three teenagers died when their car travelling the wrong way down the A66 crashed and killed two police officers.

The two brave policemen, PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, were killed when their patrol car was hit. Now Cleveland Police have released the names and ages of those who died in the VW Passat.

They are: Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Robert Worthy, 16, Jacob Matusiak, 23, and 18-year-old Makai Saddington. A police spokesman said: “Family Liaison Officers are continuing to work with the families all of those who sadly lost their lives in the collision. “

The M9 incident in the Republic has drawn commentary about videos of children driving dangerously circulating on social media platforms. The Republic’s Enterprise Minister Peter Burke said social media companies have a “very significant responsibility” to ensure that they are moderating dangerous content.

Mr Burke told RTÉ’s This Week: “We’ve seen how many people have been let go from social media companies over the last number of months, and yet this content keeps appearing.

“This moderated content is not properly taken down on time – which is not good enough. I’ve always been very clear on this: Irrespective of what money the State ever takes in terms of tax receipts from any company or social media companies, that our children are most precious and most important in any society and they always come first.

“And Government will never, ever, ever be behind in taking action on our social media companies when they endanger our society like they are doing in this case.”

After the M9 crash, funerals were held for teenagers Joe Carthy, Alex McCarthy and Kamil Pustkowski on Friday, while services for Jeremy O’Brien and Jack Kennedy will be held on Monday and Tuesday. A child and three women from the same family, who were in the other car, were taken to hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

Ella Hendricken and Niamh and Alma Kinsella were travelling with the child to the airport for a holiday. A vigil in support of the family took place in Carlow on Friday, while an online fundraiser had raised 730,000 euro by lunchtime on Sunday.

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