Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 November 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Session 4: International Collaboration

Ms Áine Kerr:

Parts of this are done country by country, i.e., speech, while parts can be done at an international level around political advertising. Regarding the point that this is about process and framework, I mentioned that high-level working group earlier. There is a formula - a framework - there to which it has given a lot of thought. It involves whether one can work with the public, civil society and a coalition of organisations to build standards that are about behaviour and, in parallel with that, the technology platforms would build covenants - that these are their warranties - so that they are held responsible as well to ensure there is platform responsibility matched to those standards.

Layered on top of that could be independent regulators tracking and monitoring the implementation of the standards and covenants and, ultimately, imposing huge fines where there has been a stepping out of line. In parallel, there may be a need for Internet courts on very specific issues to deal matters on a case-by-case basis. Obviously, Facebook would be considered. There is a role for the oversight boards. We are starting to see, in some of the high-level working groups and in the conversation today, that there is a framework and process that could be built in country by country and company by company.

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