People

Digital damage: ‘It often felt like Big Tech didn’t want me to be a functional person’

People’s Inquiry on Big Tech Harms event in Dublin hears of mental health effects of social media

Uplift's Siobhán O’Donoghue with Tate Minish, Jennifer Waters and Jacob Sosinsky, who all gave testimony, and tech policy expert Tanya Carroll, who was a member of the panel, for People’s Inquiry on Big Tech Harms at the Spencer Hotel in Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Uplift's Siobhán O’Donoghue with Tate Minish, Jennifer Waters and Jacob Sosinsky, who all gave testimony, and tech policy expert Tanya Carroll, who was a member of the panel, for People’s Inquiry on Big Tech Harms at the Spencer Hotel in Dublin. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Ella Sloane
Sat Oct 26 2024 - 06:00

A student from University College Cork, Tate Minish, has shared his experience of quitting social media in February 2024 because of the harm he felt it had been inflicting on his mental wellbeing.

Minish described feeling constantly “anxiety-ridden”, but said he now finds “much more meaning and equilibrium in my life after ... removing the overbearing influence it had”.

“It often felt like Big Tech didn’t want me to be a functional person,” he said.

Campaign group Uplift, which says it wants to see “progressive change across Ireland”, held what it called a “People’s Inquiry on Big Tech Harms” in Dublin on Tuesday.

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The event followed the publication by media regulator Coimisiún na Meán of its online safety code, promising “an end to the era of social media self-regulation”, on Monday.

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit will be obliged to comply with the new code, or face fines of up to €20 million, or 10 per cent of a platform’s annual turnover, whichever is greater. Taoiseach Simon Harris chaired an online safety meeting in Government Buildings on Thursday.

Human rights lawyer Noeline Blackwell chaired Uplift’s event, hearing testimony from activists and academics on the harms that can be caused by social media.

Blackwell said the event was “a chance to focus” on the ways in which Government can co-ordinate with tech corporations to significantly reduce the harm being done in digital spheres.

“We get drawn into looking at what the victim can do, what the person who’s being harmed can do along the way. The word that’s coming through the whole time is systemic issues, there are things wrong with the system, with the structures, in a way that is helping or contributing to the harm at least or maybe even causing the harm,” Blackwell said.

I needed to delete my social media accounts as hate was flowing my direction for just existing. It was really affecting my mental health

—  Jacob Sosinsky, Uplift

Attendees heard about the impact a lack of regulation had on democracy, the environment and mental health, as well as the extent of online abuse being directed towards minority groups such as LGBTQ+ people and migrants. Panellists included tech and democracy campaigner Liz Carolan, race relations consultant Dr Ebun Joseph, SpunOut’s Ian Power and tech policy adviser Tanya O’Carroll.

Sharon Mpofu, a member of the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland, spoke about the online abuse people seeking safety in this country can be subjected to.

“Social media hate speech is really affecting a lot of migrants here in Ireland. They are being shut down, they are being insulted, they’re being picked on, because of the hate speech that is being spread on social media platforms,” Mpofu said.

“People are being attacked on their way to work, they’re being attacked on buses. Kids are being bullied at school due to social media. Yes, social media has its good side and its bad side – it can help somebody, and it can destroy somebody.”

[ The Irish Times view on the regulation of social media: first, enforce the rules that are there ]

Uplift’s digital campaigns and support worker Jacob Sosinsky offered his perspective as a transgender man and member of the LGBTQ+ community. “Those platforms can really be breeding grounds for radicalised content, where attacks on LGBTQ+ rights are organised and amplified. They are not accidental,” Sosinsky said.

“As a trans man myself, I needed to delete my social media accounts as hate was flowing my direction for just existing. It was really affecting my mental health.”

Siobhán O’Donoghue, executive director at Uplift, said that “a handful of big tech corporations ... are manipulating our digital spaces for their private profit”.

Uplift says it intends to submit a report to the Government outlining how the internet can be made “a better and safer place for us all”.

It will “also seek to put questions to leaders of big tech companies about the harms they’re causing to people and communities across Ireland”, O’Donoghue added.

“We hope the People’s Inquiry on Big Tech Harms will mark a turning point.”