Dr. Pierre François Docquir:

I am actually joining the meeting from Lisbon, Portugal. I thank members for the opportunity to speak before the joint committee. Article 19 is a global freedom of expression non-governmental organisation. We work for a world where all people everywhere can freely express themselves and actively engage in public life without fear of discrimination.

Article 19 acknowledges that part of the content that circulates on social media platforms can contribute to undermining safety and civility and we also acknowledge that preventing social harms linked to the circulation of online content is a worthy objective. It is a very difficult issue, however, especially with categories of speech that are, as the expression goes, "lawful but harmful". As our colleagues from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, have developed in their submission to this committee, definitions of categories of "harmful content" are highly problematic from the perspective of freedom of expression. Dealing with each category of social harms is a complex matter that requires many different perspectives and different forms of expertise. It cannot be expected that social media companies would take the place of therapists, social workers, researchers, media literacy experts and others.

We believe that bringing together the different stakeholders concerned with content moderation in a transparent and participatory forum could provide an effective approach to the external oversight of social media platforms. Such a mechanism could ensure both the protection of fundamental rights and the effective regulation of problematic content. This is why, as part of Article 19’s efforts to promote freedom of expression online, we have developed the idea of a social media council, which is a model for a multi-stakeholder mechanism of voluntary compliance that will oversee content moderation practices on social media platforms on the basis of international standards on freedom of expression and other fundamental rights. The social media council would have the power to review individual content moderation decisions and to elaborate general recommendations for social media platforms.

During our discussions on the social media council model, one of the concerns that emerged as particularly important is that the oversight of content moderation practices should be well informed of the linguistic, political, historical, cultural and social dimensions of the context of a content moderation dispute. This is why Article 19 considers that, where possible, social media councils should be created at the national level. We have submitted the idea to a broad range of stakeholders in Ireland and on the basis of the interest of the majority of the people with whom we spoke, we have initiated a process that could lead to the creation of the first social media council. I want to make it very clear that Article 19 proposes to facilitate a process and does not plan to operate or control the Irish social media council.

We believe that the social media council could work well to complement a future public regulatory authority. In our written submission, we made suggestions for how the social media council could fit within the future legal and regulatory framework for social media platforms in Ireland. I am very happy to respond to any questions members may have.