Mr. T. J. McIntyre:

If I may elaborate on that point, what Deputy O'Donovan is describing is really something that relates to heavily regulated media. The media are already subject to obligations, be it to the Press Council in the case of newspapers or to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland in the case of the broadcast media. Deputy O'Donovan's example is striking because it illustrates that abuses will occasionally arise even in a heavily regulated environment. That is not necessarily an argument for extending regulation to a different context, particularly because the editorial involvement and endorsement are very different in each case.

The Deputy referred to The Irish Times, a newspaper that stands over what it publishes. Its brand stands for a certain level of integrity and truthfulness in the content of the articles it prints. It is not open to The Irish Times to say that it is not willing to stand over what John Waters said today. It would be very misleading to extend that analogy to the Internet, where we do not expect Twitter or Facebook or YouTube to stand over everything their users say. The idea that we should take a principle that has developed in the context of media that select whose words they will print, the editorial line they will take and so on, and then apply that to providers that really are just conduits for the opinions of other people-----