Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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170. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality given that one third of the complaints received from Ireland to the Appeals Centre Europe related to harassment and bullying, and one in five concerned hate speech, the steps being taken by him to tackle the increasing incidence of harmful content online; and how he plans to enhance the effectiveness of current content moderation mechanisms. [12862/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Online safety is a whole of Government issue, with responsibility for relevant measures shared across a number of Departments and agencies.

Coimisiún na Meán has been established further to the provisions of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 and operates under the aegis of my colleague, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The Act empowers an Online Safety Commissioner, as part of the wider Coimisiún na Meán, to hold designated online services to account through binding online safety codes. These codes set out obligations in relation to how these services tackle, at a systemic level, the availability of defined categories of harmful online content.

Among other things, the code sets out obligations for video-sharing platforms to restrict certain categories of video and associated content such as: cyberbullying, promotion of eating disorders, self-harm and suicide, and incitement to hatred or violence on a range of grounds including gender, political affiliation, disability, ethnic minority membership, religion and race. It also sets out obligations relating to the operation of age assurance systems to protect children from pornography and extreme or gratuitous violence.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which falls under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment deals with user rights to appeal decisions of online platforms. If the Deputy has further queries in this regard he may wish to put a question to that Department in relation to the right to appeal.