A Dail committee has recommended that a minimum age should be set for children to create an online account with social media services according to a report from the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media.
Committee members did not agree a specific age for the proposed social media ban for children.
According to RTE, Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne said the new commissioner could become one of the most powerful regulators. Senator Byrne said “social media companies could not continue to self-regulate and the State had to step in to protect citizens”.
Some are saying that the proposal to set a minimum age for social media usage will provide the Irish government with a “back-door” to Chinese / communist style social media censorship.
People concerned about State censorship could say that If the Irish government set a minimum age under the guise of “child protection”, then the logical next step would be for all social media users to be forced to provide photo ID with data of birth and residential address to “prove” they are not under the so-called minimum age.
This type of draconian, communist style censorship would suit the government and legacy media, who for years have been pushing to remove anonymity from the Internet.
In a 2013 article penned by Jennifer O’Connell of Irish Times (and the Journal.ie) titled Goodbye anonymity: let’s unmask the internet, Ms O’Connell wrote;
“Every time this topic comes up, it prompts protest that anonymous online commentary is a cornerstone of free speech. Sorry, but that’s just tosh – posting anonymous comments on the website of a private, commercial media organisation is not your constitutional right”.
The question is, is this new recommendation about banning children from social media platforms really about child protection, or is there a more sinister motive, to ban anonymous accounts from the internet and shut down free speech in Ireland?
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