Dr. Eileen Culloty:

It is very important to have a realistic understanding of recent legislation, both in Ireland and at EU level. A lot of it is long term. The Digital Services Act and our Online Safety and Media Regulation Act look at risks and harms. There are lots of risk assessments and lots of evaluations of what the tech companies say their risk assessments are. None of that will help us when it comes to elections this year. Those are long-term plans, and it is important to be quite clear about that because there is a lot of confusion surrounding the Digital Services Act, in particular in what it can and cannot do. It is very specifically focused on illegal content. People can flag illegal content but, as I am sure all the members will be aware, disinformation is not illegal. People are entitled to say things that are false and to believe things that are false. The issue is whether it causes harm, and that will be something that people can debate and argue about. We have to be very clear about that and not have unrealistic expectations.