Irish lawmakers have summoned TikTok to explain how it handles videos that appear to glorify dangerous and illegal driving, days after five teenage boys were killed in a wrong-way motorway crash that also left four people seriously injured.
The teenagers were travelling against traffic on an Irish motorway before colliding with another vehicle carrying three women and a child who were heading to Dublin Airport.
Ireland’s parliamentary Committee on Arts, Media, communications, Culture and Sport has now asked TikTok to explain how it removes content promoting illegal activity on the country’s roads
Committee chairman Alan Kelly said serious questions had emerged following the tragedy about social-media material appearing to celebrate dangerous behaviour
“We need meaningful action from social media platforms,” Kelly said.
The intervention follows warnings from Irish police that some groups of young men have allegedly been competing to produce social-media videos showing dangerous encounters with officers and vehicles being driven against motorway traffic.
Footage purportedly recorded from the car involved in Sunday’s fatal collision has circulated on social media, alongside videos showing other incidents of dangerous driving. The authenticity and circumstances of individual clips circulating online should therefore be treated cautiously.
TikTok did not comment directly on the parliamentary invitation, according to Reuters, but the company earlier said it was closely monitoring content connected with the deaths and removing videos and accounts found to breach its rules.
Ireland’s media regulator has separately asked TikTok to provide a full account of the measures it has taken to address content depicting risky and reckless driving.
The scrutiny adds to TikTok’s existing regulatory obligations in Ireland. The country’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has previously applied its Online Safety Code to TikTok, requiring the platform to comply with measures governing potentially harmful online content.
The Irish government is also considering tougher action following the crash, including making deliberately driving the wrong way on a motorway a separate criminal offence.
Police are expected to introduce vehicle-pursuit training for officers before the end of the year, while the government has promised to provide authorities with resources required to tackle the behaviour.
Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan issued a stark warning to anyone contemplating deliberately driving against motorway traffic, saying they risk imprisonment or death.
The latest developments broaden the investigation and public debate surrounding the fatal crash, shifting attention beyond the collision itself to the possible role of social-media attention in encouraging extreme and potentially deadly driving behaviour.
