Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the move here and this refinement of EU law is very welcome. This is a transnational crime, and particularly with Europe in a time of war, it is really important we are sensitive to the way in which difference, vulnerabilities and hostilities can be blown out of all proportion. That said, the criminal bar is very high and we must often look elsewhere for the drivers of what eventually emerges as hate speech and appalling hate crimes.

Not unlike the discussion we have had recently on gender-based violence, where we find a very low level of reporting of such crimes and low detection rates, this is an area where people are feeling extremely intimidated in reporting. There is a wider responsibility for society, including in politics, as Deputy Crowe mentioned, to identify the smaller ways in which a tolerance for caricatures of opponents are created that are deliberately designed to discredit. Such action has been magnified by social media and it seems the apparent remoteness or anonymity of social media has created an extraordinarily feral environment where people seem to think they can say anything. They sink into their own little capsules and only listen to the views of those who are like them.

We who are in politics have a particular responsibility to try to restore some sort of a common forum with common standards being applied. I was proud to be part of the development of the online safety commissioner. We developed that concept and we must steer a course between the right of freedom of expression on the one hand and the right to respect people and protect their privacy on the other. The approach being taken in that respect is very important and we must see it go beyond the fairly narrow criteria that were being thought of in the context of that Bill, which considered things that would be unsafe.

We must see the development of codes of practice within social media platforms that observe more standards than they have been used to in the past. It is correct there should be flexible codes so that an online commissioner would not have to try to set out inflexible rules in primary legislation. Instead, we should be able to give some discretion to an online commissioner to be able to identify the trends emerging and cut them off at their source. The anonymity of some of those who put up this material must be challenged as well. I am not sure it is acceptable that we have the creation of capsules of hate with anonymous people fuelling that hate.

There is real scope to go beyond the criminalisation of the very extreme cases and look within our society to see how we might correct other features that are the early starts to the sort of appalling abuse that can emerge. I wish the Minister well but the House will need to return to this subject to try to ensure standards across a range of communications can be upheld.

See this speech in context