Ms Liz Carolan:

I thank the Deputy. I get asked to speak about this issue at various times and there are often representatives of platforms present. I always find it interesting how much time we spend asking people how they would like to be regulated in this domain. In other domains, it does not happen quite so much. How can our interpretations of the kinds of values we want to have in our democracy, which we have been talking about for the past while and which include the regulation of expenditure and provisions on transparency and access to information, be applicable in a context where there are private companies trying to create rules that will apply in 216 countries? I can empathise a lot with the platforms because they cannot do as I describe. There is no way to design the perfect advertisement archive that is going to fit with regulations that are popping up in over 200 countries. I am not entirely sure of the answer. I would be interested in hearing the members' goals in talking to the platforms. Is it to ask them what realistic regulation would be?

Is it to get ideas from them? I always find it tricky to figure out how to bring the subject of regulation into discussions and what our goals should be in that regard.