EDITOR – We cannot allow social media platforms and online content aimed at children and teens to be designed for addiction. It must stop.
Ahead of the presentation of a new EU Kids Act on Thursday, I’m calling on the Commission to revise the proposals.
These EU-wide measures must introduce new protections for children and more tools to enable parents or guardians to help keep their kids safe.
Most importantly, they need to be clear that social media use is not appropriate for those under the age of 16 and legislate accordingly.
Continuing to allow social media use between the ages of three and 15, even with the proposed conditions such as parental control, is a cop out by the European Commission and falls short of what is expected from the European Parliament.
While we have been told that the new EU Kids Act will put an end to endless scrolling and addiction to screens and identify high-risk features that should not be accessible for young people, such as AI chatbots, the reality is that the leaked proposal doesn’t adequately provide this protection.
We need to be definitive here – a social media ban for under 16s, as we have seen introduced in Australia, is the correct and decisive way forward to protect children and young people from the well-documented problems associated with social media during their crucial developmental years.
I’m calling on President von der Leyen to revise these proposals, put a clear ban for under 16s in place, and ensure the new rules do what they are intended to do.
Preventing cyberbullying online remains a long-time priority of mine and we need to see changes here that will genuinely contribute to this.
I repeat my call to the Commission that an EU-wide Coco’s Law is launched to make cyberbullying and online harassment a criminal offense across all member states.
Irish campaigner and mother Jackie Fox has been an inspiration in bringing Coco’s Law to Ireland, following the tragic death of her daughter Nicole ‘Coco’ Fox after horrendous bullying, and sets a strong example for the rest of the EU to follow.
What is illegal offline should be illegal online.
Seán Kelly, MEP (Ireland South)
LEAP
The rains that fall in Ballinlough have two short miles to go.
Kilmacabea, their parish home, is really all they know,
And where they make their final fall to mingle with the sea,
That rocky cleft could tell some tales of ancient history.
No record tells the date or time the village got its name,
But a hunted Irish fugitive along the coastway came.
O’Donovan was running, the Yeomanry behind.
Escape was all that mattered. The one thing on his mind.
He sprinted down the eastern bank and saw the cleft appear.
His courage got a timely boost from all his pent up fear.
He reached the brink and launched himself.
‘Twas all or nothing now.
But God and Fortune saved him, though only They knew how.
Thenceforth the cleft was called the Leap.
O’Donovan was saved.
A village grew and named itself to mark the day he braved
The odds that should have finished him, but over which he won.
His name will live for evermore, the Clan’s most famous son.
The early 1800s was the time the village grew.
St Mary’s built, the Leap was bridged to let the road come through,
What might O’Donovan think today if he once more trod the soil?
What might he make of electric TV and the ‘horses’ that now run on oil?
So, rest a while below the inn. Take in the view and air.
Then ponder what went on of old, and nowhere else – right there.
You’ll hear a wind borne echo from those times that went before,
And may just hear it say “Beyond the Leap. Beyond the Law”.
FAI must be given ‘red card’ over Israel football match
EDITOR – The sell-out of Irish football for 30 pieces of silver by the FAI is a double betrayal of the Irish football squad. Firstly by forcing the Irish squad to play a home game at a hostile foreign venue behind closed doors, and now forcing them to play the away game with no Irish supporters allowed and in front of a hostile crowd of a nation whose leaders and supporters have openly slandered Ireland and the Irish people as being anti-semetic for having a conscience and opposing the genocide that is being committed before our eyes in Gaza, in the West Bank and now in Lebanon.
How is it that ex IDF Israeli fans can attend, but Irish fans are the security concern and cannot? Apparently waving Palestinian flags, having a conscience and rejecting genocide now constitutes a public safety threat.
The Irish people are standing up against the campaign of Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their supporters. When will the FAI and the Irish government stand up and shout from the rooftops: “Don’t play, Show Israel the RED CARD.”
Every Saturday at one o’clock on the Grand Parade hundreds, sometimes thousands of Cork people of conscience stand up and march and show Israel the RED CARD and shout out in one voice “Dont Play”. Come and join us. Be on the right side of history.
Kevin T Finn,
Mitchelstown.
