X faces Irish investigation over concerns children not protected from pornography and violence

Social media platform X is facing an investigation over suspected breaches of Ireland’s online safety code.

Concerns had been raised about X’s compliance with rules on ensuring users were of a certain age and parental controls, Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán said.

The investigation, announced on Tuesday, is the first under the regulator’s online safety code. Any social media platform found to be in violation of the code faces fines of up to the higher of 10 per cent of relevant annual turnover or €20 million.

Under the regulator’s online safety code, X, which is owned by Elon Musk, is required to carry out age assurance to make sure children do not see videos depicting pornography or extreme/gross and gratuitous violence or acts of cruelty on the platform.

“Following reviews by An Coimisiún’s platform supervision team, concerns arose in relation to the potential ineffective implementation of age assurance mechanisms by X,” the regulator said.

“Separately, as the X platform allows adult-only content and also allows children under the age of 16 to use its service, it is required by the online safety code to provide parental control systems to ensure that parents and guardians have control over what type of content their children encounter.”

Coimisiún na Meán said there were concerns that the parental controls put in place by X may not be effective. It said the controls might not have minimum requirements, are hard to locate and are not brought to the attention of new users at the sign-up stage, as required by the code.

The investigation will now examine X’s age assurance processes. It warned that age assurance based solely on self-declaration by the user is not considered effective under the online safety code.

It will also look at whether the parental controls provided are actually in the control of parents, meet minimum requirements on functionality and that parents are actively alerted to them.

“Children have a fundamental right to participate in society, which includes the digital world, and to be protected from harm, abuse and exploitation online,” said John Evans, digital services commissioner.

When developing Ireland’s Online Safety Code, our primary focus in Coimisiún na Meán was on protecting children from illegal and harmful content online and ensuring that parents and guardians had stronger methods to shape their children’s online experiences.

“Platforms which allow users under the age of 16 must have parental controls which are under the control of parents and guardians, they must ensure that these parental controls are effective and easy to locate, and they must draw users attention to these parental controls at account sign-up stage, for any parent or guardian who wishes to use them.

Coimisiún na Meán is already conducting five other investigations into X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn under the EU Digital Services Act. It is also involved in four joint investigations opened by the European Commission into X, TikTok (two) and Shein.