Professor Conor O'Mahony:

The key point is that if we are going to define all these various forms of harm in the Bill, that needs to have some actual effect beyond simply codes of practice or broad, soft measures like that. If there is content which falls within the definition of some form of harmful content in one of the various categories in the Bill there needs to be a consequence. First, there needs to be a very clear legal obligation on a service provider to remove content identified on its platform which falls foul of one of those provisions in the Bill. If it is only a soft measure through some form of code of practice, or a document of that nature, we are likely to see non-compliance.

In my submission, I referenced an anecdote from the CEO of CyberSafeIreland who talked about a parent taking more than two years to seek to have harmful material in relation to one of their children removed. There is a risk that if we do not create a very clear obligation to remove material that scenario will be repeated in future. A clear obligation that harmful material must be removed is currently absent, but there also needs to be a process which leads up to that point because in order to identify that material there needs to be a very clear complaints mechanism.

The key elements are, first, the obligation to remove material and, second, a local complaints mechanism at service provider level so issues can be brought to a service provider's attention without having to go near the online safety commissioner. Third, as a safety net, the online safety commissioner complaints mechanism would address cases where service providers are not meeting their obligations. Those are the three components I would like to see.