Media regulator contacts TikTok over handling of footage of dangerous driving

Media regulator Coimisiún na Meán, has contacted TikTok to determine how it is responding to footage of joyriding and dangerous driving being posted on the social media platform.Greater attention is being paid to the proliferation of videos showing car robberies and illegal driving on social media after five teenage boys, who were travelling in a BMW in the wrong direction on the M9 motorway near Moone, Co Kildare, were killed in a head-on crash with another car in the early hours of Sunday morning.Three women and a child in the other car, who were on their way to Dublin Airport, remain in hospital with serious injuries.“We are in contact with TikTok to obtain more information about their response to these matters,” a spokeswoman for Coimisiún na Meán said in a statement to The Irish Times.READ MOREThe commission is responsible for regulating social media giants’ activities in Ireland and in some cases across the EU.The five youths who died have been named as Kamil Pustkowski (17) from Limerick; Jack Kennedy, also 17, from Athy, Co Kildare; Jeremy O’Brien (18) from Carlow; Joe “Joey” Carthy (15) from Athy; and Alex McCarthy (17) from Carlow.According to sources, the teenagers in the BMW were wearing balaclavas, or were otherwise masked, when they died on the M9. The deceased were aligned to a large group known to gardaí around the Carlow-Kildare region.It is understood the BMW was not registered to any of the teenagers who were killed or any of their family members. Because of that, gardaí initially suspected it had been stolen.However, gardaí now believe it changed hands for a small sum of money earlier this month without the registration details for the vehicle being updated.Videos of stolen cars being driven dangerously on Irish roads are posted to social media almost on a daily basis, gardaí have observed.The social media accounts of some of the teens contained footage of car thefts and attempts to evade Garda cars in high-speed chases.Videos of young men stealing cars have been consistently posted to social media for several years but have been ramping up in recent months, gardaí believe.On Monday, TikTok said it had removed all of the flagged content and banned accounts that violated its policies against criminal behaviour.It also said it regularly removed content that glorified violence or promoted crime that could harm others, while limiting the spread of material that encouraged unsafe behaviour, including risky driving.Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook, said it had policies to restrict users under 18 from seeing imagery depicting real-life dangerous driving likely to cause injury, as well as a prohibition of content promoting criminal or harmful activities such as high-risk viral challenges.