A new CyberSafeKids survey of primary school children has found that 70% of 8 to 13 year olds still have accounts more than a year after a ban on 13+ social media apps.
The survey titled ‘The Year Little Changed’ found that 26% of 8–12 year olds and 25% of 12–15 year olds experienced content or unsolicited contact that ‘bothered’ them, including exposure to misinformation, threats, violence, sexual material and dangerous ideas.
People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy will introduce a new online safety bill that will require social media platforms to turn off recommender algorithms for under 18s.
A similar Bill proposed by Deputy Murphy was defeated by the Government in March.
Paul Murphy said:
“It was entirely predictable, and it was widely predicted that this ban would fail. The reality is that it was designed to fail by a government that has been ‘captured’ by social media corporations.
“It was an act of a government trying to create the illusion of action in response to overwhelming public opinion, but in reality intended to have no meaningful effect on the activities and profits of the social media corporations. It is a despicable failure by design from a craven government.
“Toxic social media algorithms continue to drive an epidemic of mental health problems among young people, with anxiety, self harm, eating disorders and online addiction spiralling.
“An Ireland Thinks poll in October found that 68% of people across Ireland want social media recommender algorithms to be switched off by default, so users only see posts from people and topics they choose. The poll also found that 74% of respondents were concerned about harmful content targeting children.
“It’s clear that the public wants action to protect children and to stop toxic social media algorithms. In response, my Online Safety (Recommender Algorithms) Bill 2026 required that social media corporations turn off recommender algorithms for children aged under 18. It would also have ensured that recommender algorithms based on profiling or sensitive personal data have to be actively turned on by adult users. But in March, the Government put the interests of social media corporations before the safety of children and the health and welfare of the public, and my Bill was defeated by 80 votes to 63.
“This wilful endangerment of children cannot be tolerated, so in the new Dáil term I intend to bring forward a similar Bill that will put the health and safety of children before the profits of social media corporations.
“The Government must stop doing the bidding of social media corporations and must finally do the right thing to protect children from harmful content”.