Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 16 October 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality
Online Harassment and Harmful Communications: Discussion (Resumed)
Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source
I want to tease out the point Mr. Lupton made about hosts being prescribed as publishers, how he has a resistance to that and how that would fall outside of or be incompatible with European law. I understand where that comes from because the idea of the Internet is it is instant. That is what makes it perfect. One pushes a button to search something and he or she has it. One puts something up online and it is there in front of him or her straight away. That instantaneous element of it gives it the edge over every other form of media or publication. They have an argument there but at the same time, that argument cannot be used to avoid responsibility. Is there space somewhere between the two that we need to find? It is like the question of how does one define the harmful content. How does one define where that space is or is it possible to do that?
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