Dr. Eileen Culloty:

On the question on platforms and publishers, the debate has been occurring for a long time but it may miss the nature of what is happening. The early regulation on the Internet defined what we call online platforms as something akin to a telephone line provider, which is providing a service and is not responsible for what people say over the phone. That is perfectly reasonable. The platforms we have now, however, are clearly a lot more involved than a telephone line. Therefore, they are more than just neutral. They are also not publishers in the traditional sense of media broadcasters or newspapers. From regulatory and policy perspectives, we have not really grappled with the fact that we have a new type of entity with enormous influence.

On the point on media pluralism, when we talk about pluralism in the media market we mean media owners. We should also think about pluralism on the Internet because the Internet is a lot bigger than the handful of platforms that dominate the online world. It is lax regulation internationally that has allowed them to buy up competitors and new entrants to the market. They are fundamentally anti-competitive and giving the view that a handful of platforms own the Internet. They do not. There is an important role for regulators internationally, not just in Ireland, to push back against that.