Ireland makes “no apologies” for its media regulation, the Taoiseach has said, as he defended measures aimed at protecting children from harmful online technology.
During a series of hearings on the Digital Services Act, the US House Committee on the Judiciary heard from one witness who described Irish media regulator Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM) as “ground zero” for much of Europe’s regulatory approach, reports Breaking News.
CnaM is tasked with enforcing the Digital Services Act on several major US technology firms that have their European headquarters in Dublin.
Committee members were urged to leverage Irish-US relations as a means of applying pressure on the regulator, reports Breaking News.
When asked about the hearings on Monday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Ireland ranks highly in global indices measuring freedom of speech, human rights and freedom of assembly.
He told reporters in Washington DC: “But where we make no apologies is the need to protect children and the need to protect young people from the harmful effects of modern online technology, reports Breaking News,
“And in addition to that then, making sure that we protect democracy.”
Martin acknowledged that “there will always be people with different perspectives and different analysis”, but added: “One thing we’re not about is shutting down free speech. We believe in people’s right to speak,” reports Breaking News,
The Taoiseach also said there is a need to simplify regulation across Europe in order to better support innovation, particularly in the field of Artificial intelligence.
He said: “Ireland is a bastion of free speech, freedom of assembly and democracy, that would be our position in respect of that. And the European Union is focused at the moment on a series of omnibus regulatory measures which are designed to simplify and, in some cases, reduce regulation and to try and shift the balance more towards innovation. If you take the AI revolution at the moment, and there’ll be ups and downs in that journey, but essentially, the US and China are way ahead of everybody else. Their focus is very much on the innovation side, and Europe needs to rebalance its approach and focus to innovation, and really look critically at the regulatory framework that governs us,” reports Breaking News.
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