The media regulator Coimisiún na Meán has published its online safety code, promising “an end to the era of social media self-regulation”.
The code is a legally binding set of rules regulating content on video-sharing platforms with their EU headquarters in Ireland, with the expressed aim of protecting users from harmful content.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, Tumblr and Reddit will be obliged to comply with the new code, or face fines of up to €20 million, or 10 per cent of a platform’s annual turnover, whichever is greater.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Niamh Hodnett, Coimisiún na Meán’s Online Safety Commissioner, said she hoped the new code would prompt “behavioural change” at social media platforms.
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“For too long, people have felt that the online world was the Wild West, or there are no effective measures in place [to tackle harmful content].
“We’ll be overseeing the platforms to ensure that they’re complying with those obligations, and we can hold them to account where they don’t,” she said.
Content constituting cyberbullying, promoting self-harm or suicide and promoting eating or feeding disorders, incitement to hatred or violence, terrorism, child sex abuse material, racism and xenophobia is prohibited under the code.
The code also compels platforms to enact age assurance controls where appropriate – including the prevention of children encountering pornography or gratuitous violence.
The code does not mandate a particular age verification method, although self-declaration alone “is not sufficient” to comply with its rules, Ms Hodnett said.
Platforms must also offer users channels whereby they can report breaches of the code, and must subsequently act on those reports.
General obligations of the code will come into effect from next month, but platforms will enjoy a grace period before some more detailed provisions are enforced.
Coimisiún na Meán will take a “supervisory approach” to enforcing the code, according to the regulator, “ensuring that platforms implement appropriate systems to comply with the provisions of the code”.
John Evans, Coimisiún na Meán’s Digitial Services Commissioner, said the regulator’s role was to ensure that platforms operate mechanisms where content can be reported by users.
Ms Hodnett said all platforms engaged with Coimisúin na Meán during the development of the code, but noted that “engagement is a very different matter to compliance”.
Tumblr and Reddit both challenged the regulator’s decision to subject them to the new rules outlined by the code, but the High Court in June threw their separate cases out. Ms Hodnett said Reddit is currently appealing that decision in the Court of Appeal.
Una Fitzpatrick, director of Ibec’s Technology Ireland interest group, said the tech industry “strongly supports a co-regulatory approach to achieve the protection of all users, including children and young people, from harmful online content”.
A spokeswoman for TikTok said: “We welcome Coimisiún na Meán’s adoption of the Online Safety Code.”
Taoiseach Simon Harris said the new code will send “a strong message to social media platforms that they will be held accountable for how they protect those who use their sites from harmful video content”.
Minister for Media Catherine Martin said in a statement that the adoption of the code is a “major step forward in online safety”.
The online safety code was developed following the enactment of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022. The code gives effect to certain obligations to the State outlined in the European Commission’s Audiovisual Media Servcies Directive.
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