Social media executives to be held personally accountable for harmful content, per new codes of conduct

Following new codes of conduct, due later this year, executives at social media companies will be held personally accountable for harmful content on their platforms.

Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland's new media regulator, has been working on a code of conduct for social media companies, which will be finalised and implemented by the end of the year, according to the Taoiseach.

"[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," said Simon Harris.

Mr Harris further stipulated that the companies "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".

The news comes as the Taoiseach received threats made to him and his family via an Instagram post at the weekend. The social media platform took two days to remove the post, despite urging from An Garda Síochána.

Mr Harris did not directly address the personal threats, but shared his thoughts on the unregulated content social media companies seem to overlook, saying: "It's totally unacceptable, that any...media platform; digital, online, print would allow a threat towards anybody remain for a significant period of time, because one of the concerns that I think not just I have but I think people right across the country have, is the speed at which information gets shared online."

He also mentioned that speaking to parents across Wicklow, his own constituency, the general verdict is that cyber bullying is a huge problem for their children, implying a significant impact on Irish youth as a whole.

"So, there is a responsibility...that online media providers have to make sure they act with speed, and quite frankly, in a general sense, they're not living up to that obligation at all," Mr Harris continued.

"It's just utterly unacceptable that any post towards any person, young, old, public figure, private figure, inciting violence would be left there for a period of time because as you know, it's not just that it stays there in a static location. It gets shared and shared and shared hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times in some locations."

To combat the issue of cyberbullying and unregulated content on social media platforms, the Taoiseach said he would convene a meeting of various stakeholders to see what more can be done in the short term.

Elsewhere, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said it is "absolutely imperative" that social media companies must take threats and cases of cyberbullying more seriously, ensuring that such content is removed as quickly as possible.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms McEntee commented on the threats made against Mr Harris and his family, saying it was "absolutely appalling" that such threats would be made against the Taoiseach, "but in particular that his wife and children would also be included in that threat."

"Whether it's a threat made online or in person it's no less serious nor is it taken any less seriously," the minister continued.

Ms McEntee added that Coimisiún na Meán has been established recently and is working through a code of practice, which will be finalised or fully implemented by the end of the year.

The minister asserted that gardaí work closely with social media companies and that while they have engaged, work remains to be done.

Ms McEntee highlighted that one challenge in making complaints to such companies is that the complaint may not meet a certain threshold as stipulated in the platform's policies and codes of conduct.

"We need to make sure through these codes of conduct that where a certain threshold has been met...where something is very clearly a crime, to threaten someone online, it is just as serious as doing it in person, so it shouldn’t be taking social media companies any length of time to take down something that is clearly identified as a criminal offence.

"We wouldn't have set up Coimisiún na Meán if there wasn't an issue here or there wasn't a problem here," she continued.

Meta, the company which owns Instagram, has now removed the post for violating its policies and has begun investigating the incident.