Ruairí Ó Murchú: Social media is failing young people
Ruairí Ó Murchú questions the impact of social media on young people after a frank discussion about Snapchat, online bullying and misinformation about autism. He presses for platform accountability and regulation as witnesses describe group-chat harassment and misleading online narratives.
Personal testimony: A young user recounts being excluded, mocked and repeatedly added into cruel Snapchat group chats. He describes homophobic name-calling, ridicule over his long hair and the lingering effect such behaviour can have on wellbeing.
Platform responsibility: Ó Murchú highlights how social media companies prioritise keeping users online and argues they must be held to account through regulation and meaningful fines. He and the contributors point to the lack of active moderation or meaningful checks on how apps draw users into harmful interactions.
Misinformation and autism: The discussion turns to persistent misinformation about autism, including misuse of the term Asperger's and the historical facts behind it. A guest explains how a podcast is being used to correct falsehoods and educate listeners about outdated terms and their origins.
Consequences and next steps: The exchange underscores the real-world consequences of online abuse and unchecked disinformation. Ó Murchú frames these stories as evidence that policymakers need to act to protect young people and ensure platforms take responsibility.
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Go raibh maith agat go raibh maith agat go léir, ta fáilte róbh. As already has been said you've been very eloquent. I probably won't be so forgive me. Luke if we could start with, in fairness you said you basically didn't go on social media until second year but you felt you were losing out on something then you obviously found it to be positive. What I just want to ask and if you could even go through some of those examples of being added to a group whereby then you get bullied and in fairness you obviously had developed a fair amount of resilience and an element of critical analysis which not everyone will have but if I could just ask how you attain that first of all and then as I say just work it through the example. Thanks. Yeah it was pretty much all on Snapchat. I don't use any other social medias. I have TikTok, I have an account but I have an iPad so that I can't use it through my daily life. You use it for scrolling? I'll do half an hour then I'll put it down because I've realised I've done it too much. So I went through it first year and I didn't use social media and I did feel like I was missing out because I didn't talk to the people in my class outside of class. They had a class group chat. I didn't know about it because I wasn't on Snapchat. I just didn't know. So I kind of did live a bit of an oblivious kind of life when it came to that socially and I did rely a lot on family but no one ever approached me or asked me to download it. I had people going oh you don't have it and because it's the societal norm that everyone will have social media but I don't and I didn't but then it just kept growing on me and I knew if I didn't get it I would miss out too much and I did feel a lot of pressure and then once I did download it and you know it was good for the first while then you know there would always be people who would be mean to me online and I just unadded them, get rid of them. Are they people you knew? Oh yeah no they'd be people I'd know but not very well and there was this I'll use a key example big bunch of girls not the nicest of folks and I think they saw me as a bit of a joke and you know I was probably an inside joke in their friend group so they'd mock me to my probably behind my back more than I knew but they'd add me into you know random group chats they'd say something stupid and it would just make me a joke so I knew it I'd open a message I'd kind of play back and forth then I'd leave they had me back in but I had it easy because I'd see it as a light-hearted kind of thing and they weren't too mean to me thankfully but it did get to me and it would kind of stay in the back of my head for a long time. Right but this is something that's happening across the board and in an awful lot of times it's gonna be a lot more nefarious than that like yeah yeah like I said I had it light I had it really light I can only imagine if it was a group of you know well more mean people for lighter words that I could end up in a really rough spot mentally I had long hair for years and god the abuse I would go through for having long hair getting called girl a girl getting called gay a lot of homophobia as well I'm not even gay you know it was ruthless it was but if if I was imagine if I was in the closet and that was happening it could really be detrimental to your well-being. 100% and the toxicity has got a lot worse and I think in fairness it was summed up earlier by you first of all you just cannot trust social media companies they need to be held to account it's through regulations and relief you know it's it's fines big fines and nothing else is gonna make a difference to them they make money by keeping you online they don't care how to do it. If I can add one thing on top then I'll shut up and throughout my entire time using snapchat I've never had anyone stop me and ask you know why do I use the app what am I using it for and snapchat doesn't care they just you know every few months the terms and conditions might show up because the EU is making them change their laws because they're trying to do a money grab all the time you know and I'll just press the button and okay gone so there's no one stopping me going online and doing anything harmful. There's no element of policing in relation to this but also you said it's the like if you weren't on this you wouldn't have half the communication links you mightn't even have the same relationship with your friends that's the positive. They make you reliant on it I mean once everyone gets reliant on it you can't leave otherwise you will miss out. Okay now that's and look we've talked about the toxicity and fairness Caitlin you spoke about you know the whole thing of so it's the misinformation disinformation that you get online and I'm back to that question previously it's it's it's how people have gained the critical analysis to know this is a nonsense even though I've seen this six times in some cases from six different idiots but you know if like advertising works and but I'm really interested in how people have developed their own critical analysis and ability to say this is a nonsense or this is something I need to check out because I can't just believe it first time. Yeah there was and there is generally a lot of misinformation about autism I know my experience and on my podcast I talked I have 10 episodes currently and on one of them I did talk about and like different types of misinformation like phrases you shouldn't use and like outdated terms and symbols like why you shouldn't use them like for example and how you shouldn't say Asperger's anymore because even and to this day and some people still say it and I've heard people still say it and they don't and they say it without knowing the origin behind it and the origin being that Asperger's is no longer used because in the and I think in 2010 and around then or that time and it was discovered that the guy who what Asperger's was named after Hans Asperger an Austrian physician who and did who did do key studies on autism was actually complicit with and the Nazi regime and was committed in the child euthanasia program where and in specifically Spiegelgrund in Austria where 800 children died from 1940 to 1945 but a lot of people still don't know that information and that you shouldn't use certain terms and symbols and and so and so online it's like really prevalent to try and get that misinformation and erased yeah you use your podcast almost to combat this no that's brilliant and that's a very good reason and that I'm sure a lot of people around here didn't know either in relation to Asperger's and my time you'll be back again
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