Under new standards of conduct that are expected later this year, executives of social media firms will be held personally liable for damaging information on their sites, reports RTE.
The Taoiseach stated that a code of conduct for social media businesses is being developed by Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland’s new media regulator, and should be in place by the end of the year.
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Simon Harris said Ireland was “ahead of many, many other European countries in our work in relation to this, and later this year, you’ll see binding codes in place that will … hit these companies where it hurts if they don’t abide by the code, which is in the pocket, and will also have an ability to hold directors personally responsible because essentially, these social media companies aren’t actually faceless, as people who make a hell of a lot of money from them and that’s fine, but they also do need to abide by the laws of the land and accept their responsibility”, reports RTE.
Regarding a threat made against him and his family over the weekend via an Instagram post, Mr. Harris was questioned.
An Garda SÃochána requested that the message be removed, but it took two days for the social media site to comply.
The Taoiseach said, “It’s totally unacceptable, that any… media platform; digital, online, print would allow a threat towards anybody to remain for a significant period of time, because one of the concerns that I think not just myself but I think people right across the country have is the speed at which information gets shared online.” He would not comment on the threats made against him specifically, reports RTE.
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