In moving the Second Stage of the Digital Services Bill (2023) yesterday, Minister Simon Coveney made what I still find to be a strange recommendation for any piece of legislation passed by a sovereign state. He said that it is a “technical bill,” designed to do no more than “give full effect to the supervision and enforcement provisions” of EU 2022/2065.
That is a rather strange position for any sovereign state, but as was pointed out recently the majority of legislation is nothing more than the transposition of EU regulations and directives into domestic law.
It was interesting too that Coveney and others concentrated not on the monitoring and banning of actual illegal and harmful content – child pornography would be one example that springs to mind or the sale of drugs – he referred to the need to tackle “disinformation” with reference to “recent terrible events at home and abroad.”
Two questions spring from this: Does anyone genuinely believe that the Dublin riots, presuming that is what he is referring to, might have been prevented with tighter internet surveillance? Secondly, to what extent do the 19 named “very large online platforms” play host to genuinely illegal dissemination of content?
If Facebook, for example, are found to be facilitating communications through their messaging services between drug dealers or people smugglers then of course there ought to be an obligation on them to prevent this taking place. And failing that they ought to be penalised for failing to do so.
But surely the obligation is on the state authorities to prevent such illegality. Is this another instance where the Irish state is not only happy to uncritically adopt an EU Regulation but to then farm out the responsibility for the monitoring and enforcement of that regulation to an ideologically motivated NGO?
As Rural Independent TD Michael Collins pointed out, with regard specifically to the Dublin riots but it can be employed generally to actually illegality, “there is already a law of the land whereby we can clamp down on that nonsensical carry-on and punish the people who do that.” The same applies to the “hate” bill. If someone is breaking the law of the land based on common law then they can be pursued and penalised.
One of the key areas of concern is the provision in Part II of the Bill, under Section 37, for the appointment of “trusted flaggers” These positions will be open to applicants who specialise in a particular area of research. Well, I could almost name some of them now. Some of the likely candidates have already gained the ear of the legislature to demand that anyone opposed to their own far left positions be censored and preferably banned.
Once appointed the “trusted flaggers” who specialise in – for talk’s sake, monitoring pro life sites which they specialise in because they do not like them – can then make complaints about the said site with a view to forcing the host entity to close it down.
Of course theoretically, the boot could be on the other foot, a point which in fairness was noted by Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly even though her party intends to support the measure. Perhaps within that party there is some residual memory of when it was the target of censorship. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín and Rural Independent Mattie McGrath both reminded Sinn Féin again of how in general they have forgotten that through mention of the former Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act.
The fact that Sinn Féin is happy to accept another Regulation from Brussels being taken directly into Irish law tells another story. It has come a long way on most things but opposition to the EU, period, was not so long ago a central part of the Sinn Féin platform. As far as I know that was never overturned by a vote at an Ard Fheis.
Yet now we have a Sinn Féin TD, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, whose only criticism of the Regulation is that it does not go far enough, and is deficient in that it does not have the power to close down online providers who through some NGO/”trusted flagger” prism on reality are disseminating “misinformation.”
Rural Independent TD for Laois/Offaly Carol Nolan hit the nail on the head as to exactly what is likely to result from the appointment of “trusted flaggers.” Deputy Nolan claimed that “this amounts in practice to organisations that are in perfect lockstep with the Government’s preferred narrative on a range of contentious issues being given significant power to close down debate. “
No such worries about possibly becoming the victim of censorship for Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats who tellingly inquired as to whether “any NGO approached the media commission declaring an interest in gaining this status?” Which pretty much tells its own story. Are these entities already in lobbying mode?
Perhaps the most apt comment on the Regulation at EU level, and it is pertinent to its proposed adoption here, was made by Sweden Democrat MEP Jessica Stegrud in April 2022. Her point that “everything that is legal offline should also be legal online” is central to any debate on proposals to limit the scope of public discourse, in any sphere.
When it comes to public discourse, therefore, no anonymous “moderator” or “flagger” or Big Tech company (and their role in suppressing debate here and elsewhere has conveniently not been referred to by the supporters of the Regulation) should – with the backing of the state and the EU – ought to be given powers way beyond those of a member of the judiciary.
No court in any democracy has the right to stop somebody expressing, or somebody else reading, an opinion that the judge or whoever appointed him do not agree with.
