Written answers

Wednesday, 28 April 2021

Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

Social Media Regulation

Photo of Holly CairnsHolly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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345. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the steps she is taking to ensure social media companies take more responsibility for persons hosting malicious, harassing and abusive content on their platforms; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21282/21]

Photo of Catherine MartinCatherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The Online Safety and Media Regulation (OSMR) Bill will establish a multi-person Media Commission, including an Online Safety Commissioner, dissolve the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, establish regulatory frameworks for online safety and the regulation of audiovisual media services, and transpose the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive.

It will be the role of the Online Safety Commissioner to oversee the regulatory framework for online safety. As part of the framework, the Commissioner will devise binding online safety codes that will set out how regulated online services, including social media services, are expected to deal with certain defined categories of harmful online content on their platforms. The defined categories of harmful online content include criminal material, serious cyberbullying material and material promoting self-harm, suicide and eating disorders.

Broadly speaking, the terms referenced in relation to online content: malicious, harassing and abusive, are covered under the OSMR Bill, both in terms of the category of harmful online content concerning criminal material and the category concerning serious cyberbullying material.

For example, harassment is specifically covered under the category of harmful online content involving criminal material as it is a criminal offence under section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997, as amended by the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act, 2020 or Coco’s Law.

In the event of continued failure to comply with a relevant online safety code, and subject to Court approval, the Media Commission will have the power to sanction non-compliant online services, including through financial sanctions of up to €20m or 10% of turnover.

The finalisation of the General Scheme of the OSMR Bill was approved on 8 December 2020. Detailed legal drafting of the Bill by the Office of the Attorney General is progressing well and the Government has placed the Bill on its priority list for publication in the summer 2021 legislative session.

In addition to this, the Joint Oireachtas Committee has commenced pre-legislative scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Bill, including oral hearings which began on 13 April 2021.

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