Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to tease out some of the last points that were made. I am also familiar with the story of the young woman - many of us may be - about whom Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan spoke. When we set up an online safety commissioner, we want to be able to assure that woman that this State regulator will be able to deal with the situation she faced and address such concerns. It is key that the office of the online safety commissioner have teeth.

Mr. O'Keeffe made a point about the speed of setting up this legislation. I agree that we need to get the media commission established. The BAI has extensive experience of regulating broadcasting, but regulating tech companies and social media and dealing with online abuse and harm is a new and growing area.

We were talking earlier about biometrics and algorithms, and I am conscious of what the witnesses said earlier about this. I think a flood of queries will arrive in to the new online safety commissioner. Ms Morgan might be able to comment on this. Every year the Data Protection Commission gets something like 6,000 individual queries around data protection breaches. If we look at the scale and level of online abuse that is out there, I have no doubt that if we have an online safety commissioner, that will attract thousands upon thousands of queries and complaints.

Ms Craig spoke earlier about the abuse that female journalists have been experiencing online. Journalists and politicians have experienced a lot of online abuse, and we heard this talked about on radio recently. There is going to be a role for this new commission and the online safety commissioner in reassuring those in journalism and politics that while people can engage in robust debate, when it crosses the line into abuse and harassment, the online safety commissioner will be able to deal with that. For example, it will need to be strong enough to be able to deal with the story of that young woman Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan spoke about and of many others. We have to ensure that role is strong enough.

This comes back to the crucial question of the extent to which we allow the social media companies to self-regulate, and this is where I would be grateful for the views of the witnesses. At the moment, if anyone makes a complaint about online abuse to Twitter or Facebook, it can take a long time to be addressed and it is often addressed ex post facto. While some of this is around education and so on, we need to look at ways to address this beforehand. Whether that is done by stopping anonymous accounts through people having to register with an intermediary or by having to identify themselves in the same way as if they were setting up a bank account, those issues have to be addressed.

I am concerned. I would like to hear the witnesses’ views on whether the current system, where the tech companies are essentially self-regulating, should be allowed to continue. It comes back to the question from Senator Cassells around the Donald Trump question. Regardless of anyone's views on Donald Trump, this is a social media company making a critical decision around the future of democracy. It could be me or anyone else tomorrow. Yes, there is a point about getting the media commission set up and running, and dealing with the audiovisual media services directive and the regulation of that sector. However, from listening to all of the questions, the debate has been around the online safety commissioner. The Data Protection Commission is right that it has to try to cover all forms of online harm, and this is why I was asking about the level of staffing required. If we look at the number of content moderators, even somewhere like Facebook, that gives an idea of the scale of the challenge.

I am unloading a lot there. This regulator will be very important and I would like to hear the witnesses’ perspectives on how we can give assurances to Alicia, the young woman Deputy O'Sullivan spoke about, who told her story publicly, and to others who are impacted.