Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. My concern comes from a focus on digital identity, the manipulation of digital presence and what happens to that in the context of democracy as a much wider subject. I am quite influenced by the writings of people such as Dr. Shoshana Zuboff on the age of surveillance capitalism and looking at what is happening on social media and with those social media giants. Today we have newspaper reports of a misinformation campaign claiming that hospitals are lying about their capacity and that they are empty. There is a pattern of online content that is repeated through several countries and we are just the latest country to exhibit this. It is a deliberate disruption campaign that is being orchestrated by somebody or some parties. My concern is that we are reliant on the Facebook definition of community rules to examine that content or do something about it and there is not, per se, anyone with the powers for a mandatory order to remove content. That is not currently in legislation. One can act on defamation but there is otherwise no limit on content.

I welcome the Bill and note the witnesses' comments on it. My concern is that it is a narrow definition of advertising, limited to the campaign period. I do not believe that that reflects the reality of our lived experience day to day, especially in the context of today's campaign and similar campaigns. I am mindful of the Digital Services Act coming. I would rather get it right or examine the possibility of getting it right, whether we do it in this legislation or in the transposing legislation when the Digital Services Act comes into being.

I look at the online safety and media regulation Bill, the creation of a media commission with broader parameters and jurisdiction, the Data Protection Commission, with which I am especially familiar, and at the electoral commission. Given their boundaries, jurisdictions and focuses, do the witnesses think that this power should be legislated for separately? Can it be done effectively within the commission? Is it too much to ask of the electoral commission? What are the witnesses' thoughts on how that can be tackled? My overriding concern is that we will publish legislation that implements rules regarding political advertising that are already out of date by a number of years with regard to reflecting the day-to-day experience.