Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To my mind the real distinction is that if Facebook were deemed to be a publisher, many people would be lining up to take legal action over certain content. By being deemed an intermediary, it escapes this consequence. This is why, in my opinion, this is like the wild west of the 21st century. There is a very interesting historical analogy. In the United States at the start of the previous century, European copyright was not accepted. This meant, in effect, that authors could not be paid. The American Government and the publishers, some of which are now the biggest names in publishing in the entire world, did not accept European copyright. The publishers made their money in that way. When they got to a certain size, they of course turned around and said that they wanted copyright enforced and regulation. It suits Internet companies to grow to a certain size and then look for a bit of regulation to prevent entry into the market.

There is one main stumbling block, if one takes an honest look at it. This is the bit I can never quite get. It reminds me of the chief executive of a cigarette company sitting before the US Senate and saying that smoking is not harmful. The witnesses answered one of Deputy O'Callaghan's questions about whether their companies increased the proliferation of child pornography. The honest answer to that is "Yes". Whether the companies accept that they are individually responsible for that or that they should be legally responsible for it, the Internet did increase that proliferation. There is no getting around that. My point is that, by not being declared publishers, the companies avoid the liabilities with which almost everybody else has to deal. I do not believe a decision in this regard should be made in Ireland alone. It should be broader and decided at least at the level of the EU. The traditional western countries need to operate together and to look at this issue. There is a role for the Internet and for what the companies do, but there is also a role for regulation.

I will conclude with this because I am conscious of time. There are two things that really changed my mind. It is not so much about the area of pornography or anything like that. There was one horrendous incident in Ireland involving Facebook, and I do not want to go into too much detail about it out of respect for the family involved, in which the public shared multiple images of an horrific incident. There is no comeback for that family. They cannot unsee it. It does not matter that it was taken down in 24 hours, which in fairness it was. People should not profit off that level of absolute horror being inflicted on someone. The other issue, unfortunately, also involves Facebook. Somebody went on a murder spree and, using the live-streaming facility Facebook developed to make further profits, live-streamed himself murdering people. I cannot understand, from a moral perspective, how people are comfortable with defending themselves against liability for that. That is my issue. That is why I believe there should be a change. Any of the witnesses are more than welcome to reply to me on those points, but that is where I will leave it for now.