Ireland: Government publishes draft Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022

The Irish government has published the draft of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022 on 12 January 2022. The Bill introduces the creation of a new Media Commission to replace Ireland's Broadcasting Authority. One of the Media Commission's key tasks will be the creation of Online Safety Codes, with the declared goal of reducing the availability of harmful online information. The Online Safety Codes, which will be the key mechanism for online safety regulation, will only apply to "designated" service providers. Any online service that supports user-generated material might be a prospective regulated service provider. Private chat and online storage services might both be affected. The Bill specifies 40 different types of offences that will be covered and thus regulated, such as specific types of dangerous material that fulfil a set of risk criteria. The online platforms will be required to remove or restrict access to content classified as harmful.