EU law administration and enforcement is complicated. One of its complexities is that laws that are decided at the EU level, are mostly enforced at the national level, after each of the 27 EU countries has made their own version of them. As most global tech companies have their European HQs in Ireland, it’s often Ireland’s version of EU law that applies to them. Hence this new law by Coimisiún na Meán, the Irish Media Regulator, is significant.
It’s quite wide-ranging, but one of its most impactful aspects is that (if made law) it would require algorithms to be turned off by default, and people only having them if they opt in. Big Tech companies will lobby to water this down before it actually becomes law, but they might not succeed. There was large-scale rioting in Dublin recently driven by far-right disinformation about immigrants on social media. The Irish government is normally the good cop to the EU’s bad cop when it comes to Big Tech regulation, but in this case, the mood might have turned against Big Tech.
EU law administration and enforcement is complicated. One of its complexities is that laws that are decided at the EU level, are mostly enforced at the national level, after each of the 27 EU countries has made their own version of them. As most global tech companies have their European HQs in Ireland, it’s often Ireland’s version of EU law that applies to them. Hence this new law by Coimisiún na Meán, the Irish Media Regulator, is significant.
It’s quite wide-ranging, but one of its most impactful aspects is that (if made law) it would require algorithms to be turned off by default, and people only having them if they opt in. Big Tech companies will lobby to water this down before it actually becomes law, but they might not succeed. There was large-scale rioting in Dublin recently driven by far-right disinformation about immigrants on social media. The Irish government is normally the good cop to the EU’s bad cop when it comes to Big Tech regulation, but in this case, the mood might have turned against Big Tech.
Link to the draft law - PDF 98 pages