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Minister Rabbitte's presentation to Communications Committee hearing on Social Media

Address by Minister Rabbitte

to

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Social Media and Governance

6th February 2013

Good morning Chairman, Deputies and Senators.

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for the invitation to address you. The arrival of social media has presented us with a complex, exciting and multi-faceted sector, one which holds within it the potential to fundamentally change the world we inhabit. But it brings its own challenges too, as we all know.

In the simplest possible terms, Social Media are online platforms that allow people create, share and exchange information, and to comment amongst themselves in virtual communities and networks. Moreover, they have been around, in one form or other, for more than 20 years. In the last 5 or 6 years however, the technology has self-evidently reached critical mass and emerged as a mainstream phenomenon. Because it is so new, and so dynamic, it is far too soon to tell what the actual implications will be but it’s already a very safe bet that this revolution, and this is what it is, will have consequences for every human being on the planet.

Given the wide range of devices and apps by which we can access social media, it’s sometimes easy to forget that what has enabled this revolution is widespread and affordable internet access. This is fitting; after all the ancestor of the net was designed and built to facilitate research and development by scientists in distant facilities – to allow them to share information and experiences.

From its genesis the internet was used to create online virtual communities. This ability to bring people together at distance, to facilitate collaboration, learning, debate and discussion is precisely that which makes social media so compelling today, so useful and such a positive experience for so many people. Social media are used for everything now, farmers use them to discuss crop husbandry and prices, software developers discuss code, fans discuss film or sport or books. And social media are everywhere, thanks to internet connected mobile devices. They are also a massively powerful educational tool – providing a recursive element to the previously ‘one way’ relationship between information providers and recipients.

At the highest level, social media have the power to be profoundly transformative – fundamentally disruptive to existing patterns of debate, existing political discourse and to existing media. Democracy has always evolved and changed along with technology; these technologies have provided citizens with a new set of tool to engage with politics, and vice versa. This is something to be welcomed and embraced, not feared.

However the novelty and power of this technology brings challenges too, right across the legal, social and personal spectrum. The same power that allows information to be shared in a free and open way also confers the ability to abuse, bully and harass others, sometimes with the benefit of anonymity.

Equally, some people have yet to fully appreciate that public messages on social media have the same legal character as if they were published in a newspaper – defamation and harassment laws apply online in just the same way as they do offline. Also, there have been experiences all over the world where people have been insulted and bullied using these media, and as we know, we have had extremely unfortunate incidents here along similar lines.

Some of these things have the character of growing pains, as soon as practice evolves and behavioural norms online become embedded, either through education or experience, some of this behaviour will mitigate. But there will always be some willing to use online media to bully, harass, or demean others. Government needs to be cognisant of the damage that these people can do, and be prepared to react in a proportionate manner.

Critically, social media or the internet didn’t lead to the invention of bullying or harassment; these behaviours existed long before that. However the nature of the internet, or at least of many of the sites involved, is such that some aggressors can either hide behind anonymity or are simply braver, or less caring, as to the effects of what they might say from the comfort and safety of their own home. For children these concerns are particularly critical; the web is their future, and social media are their media in a way that older generations will probably never be able to fully comprehend.

We must ensure that children are free to make the most positive use possible of the web, that they can take full advantage of the opportunities it offers as an educational and social tool. This will not happen if confidence in the web as a safe space for children is lost in the wider community.

The relative novelty of this area and the pervasive and broad nature of its implications pose significant challenges for governments the world over in terms of coming to terms with it however. To date, these media generally have not been subject to a formal regulatory regime akin to that used to ‘regulate’ traditional radio and television broadcast media, either in Ireland or in other jurisdictions. There is a range of reasons for this, even before you consider the challenge of keeping up with the rapidly evolving technologies involved.

The first main reason why governance in this area is so complex lies with the fact the internet governance is, and indeed has to be, conducted on a multi-jurisdictional basis. There is very little that countries can do on their own given the international basis of the web. Moreover, the system is largely operated on a multi-stakeholder model, with Governments as participants rather than controlling or ordering the process.

The second complicating factor around the governance of social media is the fact that they are, undeniably, media. This is not just due to the activity of ‘traditional’ media players in using social media, or even online media players; social media themselves are now important media players even when there are no journalists, or payment, in the picture – they are an integral part of a large and diverse media ecosystem. As such, Social Media is treated in much the same way as any media, with due consideration given to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in any measure that might impact on it.

The third main reason for this is the breadth of the implications; many different areas of Government are affected by this phenomenon and have an involvement, but no single Department or agency can steer or manage it. As Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, I have policy responsibility for providing a supportive legislative and regulatory environment to facilitate the development of high quality communications infrastructure and services. However, I do not have sole responsibility for addressing as to how that infrastructure is used.

Responsibility for measures to deal with harassment and abuse online sits with the Minister for Justice and Equality, in much the same way as his Department deals with the same issues in the offline world. To that end, his Department has established an executive agency, the Office for Internet Safety that deals explicitly with online safety.

There are solutions to these issues however. In the first instance, children, parents and teachers all require support in terms of understanding the nature of the threats that can sometimes appear online. The Department of Education have already done some very positive work in this regard, including the publication of a new Action Plan and Bullying that includes some concrete measures on cyber bullying. The Office of Internet Safety, who will present shortly, also has a number of measures in place to this end which I will leave to them to explain. Non-government players also have a role – I note particularly the work of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals in this area.

There is also a set of robust legal measures in place for defamation, introduced as recently as 2009, which covers online comment. Similarly, Section 10 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997 deals with harassment. However, while this Act deals with direct communications with someone, it does not deal with communication ‘about’ someone and at present is apparently being interpreted in a very narrow sense by the courts. We have existing mechanisms to deal with the abuse of the postal or telephone system; the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007 introduced measures dealing with the use of the telephone system to send messages that are grossly offensive, or “… indecent, obscene or menacing”, or “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to another person”.

However, it appears that there may be a gap in the legislation here in that electronic communications infrastructure is not covered by these measures and as such there is no specific mechanism available to the Gardai or the Courts to deal with the type of difficulties we have seen. My Department is presently considering ways of addressing any such issue.

This is not an easy task; there is a delicate balance to be struck between ensuring that the constitutional rights of the individual to freedom of speech and freedom of access to information are maintained, while at the same time introducing measures that can deal with this abuse in a timely and effective manner. Determining an appropriate threshold for offences to ensure that a slew of vexatious or frivolous complaints do not arise is a challenge. We have to be aware of these difficulties, and also to ensure that the questions of intent, credible threat and the degree of menace all receive due weighting. Experience in other jurisdictions has been that this balance is not easy to strike, and we fully intend to give any measures our full consideration before implementing them.

I am convinced that it is possible to ensure that people can gain the full benefit offered by social media, in their public and private lives, while being protected against harassment or bullying of any kind, if we remain open to appropriate and sensitive intervention. These interventions must tread the infinitesimally fine line between protecting individuals and ensuring that free speech, and free and open debate, are preserved. This is difficult, make no mistake, but it is a balance that we must strike again and again, in the light of new technologies.

I look forward to hearing the outcome of the rest of your discussions Chair, and I will consider and recommendations that you may have on the subject. I know that members will be wary of making sweeping recommendations given the complexity and importance of this area, but I am sure that the Committee will be able to engage constructively and sensitively in these issues.

I wish you well in your work.