Investigation commenced into X under Online Safety Code

Coimisiún na Meán’s Investigations team has today (08.09.2026) commenced the first formal investigation under Ireland’s Online Safety Code, into the provider of the X online platform (X).

Following reviews by An Coimisiún’s Platform Supervision team concerns arose in relation to the potential ineffective implementation of age assurance mechanisms by X. Under the Online Safety Code, age assurance is required on the X platform to ensure that children do not see videos depicting pornography or extreme/gross and gratuitous violence or acts of cruelty on the platform.

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. A concern exists that the parental controls put in place by X may not be effective, do not have minimum requirements, are hard to locate and are not brought to the attention of new users at sign-up stage, as required by the Code.