Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Social Media: Discussion (Resumed) with Google and Digital Rights Ireland

10:10 am

Ms Sue Duke:

As I said, I will hand over to Ms Frank to talk about what is happening at European level, but it must be remembered that we have a global platform and, therefore, our policies need to be globally applicable and executable. When we developed our guidelines, we took experts on global legal frameworks and safety etc., into the room. We worked long and hard on developing them and thought a lot about them because of the issues raised by the committee. We consider bullying to be about somebody who is persistently or gravely being attacked or harassed by somebody else. That is common to all cultures. All parents and teachers know when somebody is being bullied or attacked in that way and want to stop it. The committee should rest assured that this is something we experience around the globe. It is an issue to be addressed around the globe and a value common to all cultures.