Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. Many of them should be here on the politicians side of the table because I am hearing a lot of political speak, waffle and diversion from the questions, which is interesting.

I have a couple of questions. The stuff about publishers or facilitators is very interesting. As far as I can see, it is a movEable feast from the witnesses' point of view. Facebook was involved in a case with a company called Six4Three that came to court in 2018 where it said that it was a publisher, that it had to make decisions on what not to publish and that it should be protected because it is a publisher. However, it is not a publisher when it comes to abusive posts and so on. That is an interesting aside.

All the witnesses said there were different aspects of the regulation, that sometimes they have to make one decision and another decision on other occasions. It seems that the entire regulatory framework is unclear. From our point of view, and the point of view of the public, we could do with that being clarified. That would be important.

I ask all the witnesses, starting with Facebook, if they have the technology to track the sharing of illegal identical and equivalent posts? If I post something that is illegal and it is shared widely, can that be tracked the whole way to the end of the process?