Dr. Janil Puthucheary:

I will address a few questions to the Minister, Deputy Bruton, if I may. Ireland is no stranger to attempts of foreign interference, as was seen in the May 2018 referendum when some civil society organisations tracked various inauthentic accounts and suggested that up to 70% of them came from across the Atlantic on the basis of time zones. How has the experience with foreign interference altered or informed the approach to designing the online safety legislation? Are there concerns that once the legislation is passed, the online safety commissioner is in place and the various processes are working, those processes might be used by foreign actors to interfere with domestic matters?

In the previous session I was quite struck by the assertion from Dr. Bickert from Facebook that even if this proposed Act, the safety commission and the processes provide directives and measures for content to be removed or adjusted, Facebook would test these directions against its internal policies. Does the Minister have a view on what this means for the operation of that legislation? We have had some arguments as to whether the fundamental problem is the underlying business model of the social platforms. Does the Minister have a view on the matter?