Just last month, Corkman Anthony Quigley, aged 51, was before the courts for sending a sexual Snapchat message to a schoolgirl. The reality of social media apps is quite different to their marketing as “useful positive platforms”, he said. Social media apps are exposing young people to a wide range of harms, including addictive algorithms, sexual violence, and gambling. “We are living in an age of almost non-existent social media regulation, which has created a truly toxic online landscape,” he said. However, “the internet is not social media”, he said, and a ban on social media is not the same as a ban on safe use of the wider internet by teenagers.

Source: Irish Examiner March 21, 2026 04:00 UTC