Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Committee on European Union Affairs
Engagement with Coimisiún na Meán
2:00 am
Dr. John Evans:
If a platform is taking a more laissez-faire approach, to use that term again, then we work back to the situation of determining whether the content is illegal. If illegal content is flagged, it must come down. A platform has responsibility for that content when it becomes aware of it.
On pornography and the question of EU extraterritoriality, the way the Digital Services Act is set up is that a company can choose to nominate where it is headquartered and established in the EU. For example, many of them are here, some are based in the UK and some in the US. Snapchat is based mainly in the UK but has nominated the Dutch authority as its regulator. If a platform does not nominate a regulator to be regulated by, any one of the DSCs in Europe can pursue that platform if it wants. By that, I mean that the platform has either nominated a regulator or is are established here. In such circumstances, the European Commission or the digital services co-ordinators in the different member states can go after it. I will hand over to Mr. Moroney to talk a bit about what we are doing on the pornography side.
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