Snapchat, X and EA Games among tech companies that snubbed invitation to Education Minister Norma Foley’s online safety meeting

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show invitations to the meeting on February 14 were not taken up by X, Amazon, Snapchat, Epic Games, EA Games, Disney and Netflix.

At the meeting, social media companies refused to give the minister an undertaking to introduce more robust age-verification measures to help ensure under-13s are not accessing harmful content on their phones.

What Ms Foley later described as a “very robust” engagement was attended by representatives of Meta, Google, Microsoft and TikTok, as well as phone companies 3 and Vodafone.

In a Department of Education memo showing the invitation list, an official says an email to X had “bounced back”.

Asked if further attempts were made to invite them, a spokesperson for the department said “another channel was subsequently identified for X. However, no reply was received at the time”.

They added: “The department looks forward to engaging with the social channel at another time.”

In another memo, an official noted that X was “hard to get hold of, and has failed to show up at other meetings, such as joint Oireachtas committees”.

Epic Games was invited to the roundtable discussion as it is the owner of Fortnite, “a shoot-em-up game that lots of children and teenagers play”, and officials noted it has a Dublin office.

EA Games was invited as the publisher of Fifa Soccer, which an official pointed out has “controversial ‘loot boxes’ where children buy better players online to boost their chances in the game”. It has an office in Galway.

Netflix and Disney were invited because their “streaming services are watched by so many Irish children”.

The meeting was originally scheduled for December 13, but postponed when the department found the date “did not suit a lot of companies”.

Snapchat and Netflix were unable to send representatives on either the December or February dates.

Virtual attendance was not possible on either occasion as the conference room did not facilitate it.

Asked if a policy decision had been taken not to allow representatives of tech companies to join by Zoom or Teams, the department spokesperson said: “There was no alternative suitable room available which could facilitate virtual/hybrid attendance.”

In its RSVP to the department, Netflix pointed out that it is “not a social media company and does not have any harmful or user-generated content; everything on our service is editorially curated”.

Its representative said it would be happy to meet the minister or her team to brief them on measures Netflix has in place “to ensure our members can make the right viewing choices”.

Also discussed at the meeting on February 14 was the effectiveness of controls to prevent access to harmful and inappropriate content, the risk of children being duped by adults impersonating other children into sending inappropriate images online, the pot­ential harm caused by the use of filters on social media services and the speed of takedown procedures.

In briefing notes prepared by officials, one section was entitled “What is a common tactic of social media companies?”

The response was: “They talk about creating more parental tools so parents can keep an eye on what their kids are doing.

“They are suggesting it is a parenting issue alone, rather than putting the focus on their own responsibilities.”