Facebook Should Fight Fire with Fire and Provide Free Responsible Drinking Ads on 'Neknomnination' Pages

Today I called on Facebook to provide free advertising space for USI's 'break the chain' campaign to stop neknominations on all its pages that include content about the drinking game.

Facebook has stated that it was powerless to remove videos of people participating in the drinking game in response to the tragic death of a young man at the weekend.

It is ironic that on their 10^th anniversary Facebook is not prepared to seize the initiative. To suggest that such a successful company can wash its hands of the phenomenom of neknomination is not credible.

Of course the company is not responsible for reckless drinking, but it does own the pages where the activity is promoted.

Facebook should fight fire with fire. It must be easy for this sophisticated advertising company to ensure that any user’s page which includes neknomination content also includes material promoting smarter behaviour.

Speaking at event in Digital Skills Academy last year

USI’s 'break the chain' campaign which makes a clear argument why neknominations should be rejected is the ideal initiative that should be promoted.

I suspect that at this stage most young people in Ireland agree that neknomination is a bad idea. But there are wider issues here about how social media interact with their users – whose presence makes them wealthy.

This is an issue I’ll be raising with the Internet Content Governance Task Force that Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has established to review responsible behaviour online.