Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Ciaran Moore:

It is a relevant question because this is something we started to deal with about four years ago when we started to look at online content. For a number of decades, we had been providing guidance to broadcasters, journalists and editors in newspapers on how they would treat a story that would break. We pointed out what types of things were helpful to say in a story and what types of things should be avoided. Also, in dramas we would consult with the likes of "Eastenders", "Coronation Street" or "Fair City" if they covered these type of issues in a story.

The main difference between traditional media and broadcasting online is who one is talking to. We can talk to the journalists and broadcasters and that decides what is broadcast whereas anybody can publish something online. One of the things we are concerned about is that many of the people who publish things do not intend to cause harm. They could be vulnerable themselves or talking about their experiences and it could be part of their therapeutic process. Yet, other people receive this content and it can cause harm. The scale of the material is different, who is publishing it and who one has to talk to in order to try to manage the environment is different and the dangers are different. Harm could be caused to some of the people who are talking by stigmatising them and removing their content. We put quite a lot of work into adapting our media guidelines and we are concerned that there has to be adaption in the way the regulation works from one sphere into the other.