TikTok, Meta and Google will defend their respective records of removing content promoting illegal activity from their platforms at an Oireachtas committee hearing on Wednesday, a little over a month after the deaths of five teenagers in a crash on the M9 motorway.
In the aftermath of the crash, regulator Coimisiún na Meán contacted TikTok to determine how it is responding to footage of joyriding and dangerous driving on its platform.
The head of the regulator said it is “generally concerned about the glorification of dangerous activity” and a range of “harmful content” being available on social media platforms. Politicians and safety campaigners singled out the social media platform for criticism in the days after the crash.
Susan Moss, head of public policy and government relations at TikTok, and Zachary Hecht, TikTok’s global head of policy, trust and safety, will appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Media and Communications on Wednesday.
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They are expected to say that content promoting criminal or dangerous behaviour has “no place on social media”.
In their opening statement, seen by The Irish Times, they will say that the “recent events on our roads” have had a “profound impact” on those “directly affected and the wider community”.
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“Our priority is to prevent dangerous behaviour content from making its way onto our platform in the first place,” they are expected to add. “But we also recognise that platforms have a role to play beyond content moderation and that includes supporting An Garda Síochána and relevant organisations in efforts to deter and disrupt those who seek to use platforms to promote harmful or dangerous behaviour.”
They will tell committee members that under TikTok’s dangerous activity policy, it has removed thousands of posts from the platform, 99.6 per cent of which were removed “proactively” before being reported by users.
Some 83.4 per cent of those were removed before being viewed, and 88.9 per cent were removed within 24 hours of publication.
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Dualta Ó Broin, director of public policy for Meta Ireland, will tell the committee that the tech giant does not allow users to post imagery depicting “high-risk viral challenges” on its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook.
He is expected to say that in response to recent events, Meta is now treating driving against incoming traffic as a prohibited high-risk viral challenge, depictions of which are now being removed.
Ryan Meade, Google Ireland’s government affairs and public policy manager, will tell the committee that “content glorifying or depicting extremely dangerous driving, such as joyriding, is strictly prohibited” on its platform, YouTube.
“In the first quarter of 2026, over 98.5 per cent of the videos removed from YouTube were first detected by our automated systems. This is up from 96 per cent in the first quarter of 2025,” he will say in his opening statement.
Google, however, has seen “low volumes” of policy-violating content related to dangerous driving in recent months because of its “proactive enforcement approach”. However, he will tell TDs and senators that new “harmful trends often originate outside our ecosystem” and that Google “actively monitors” trends on other platforms.
Representatives from Coimisiún na Meán and the Department of Media will also appear before the committee.
