Online decency - Irish provisions?

bryanom

Hi there, my research has taken me in an unexpected direction to an unfamiliar area. My supervisor is away and I am hoping to have some fresh info to discuss when he gets back.

I have come across online decency legislation in the UK and the US but cant seem to find any equivalent here - do we have any or should I be looking to defamation law/ censorship laws ?

Thanks,

234

bryanom wrote: »

Hi there, my research has taken me in an unexpected direction to an unfamiliar area. My supervisor is away and I am hoping to have some fresh info to discuss when he gets back.

I have come across online decency legislation in the UK and the US but cant seem to find any equivalent here - do we have any or should I be looking to defamation law/ censorship laws ?

Thanks,

Look at section 6(2) and section 2 of the 2009 Act. The definitions of "statment" and "electronic communication" in section 2 seem to include online publications. Hope this is of some help.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2009/en/act/pub/0031/index.html

TJM

Leaving aside the special case of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act 1998 there is no Irish legislation which specifically addresses the question of "decency" in an online context.

To be specific, there is no Irish equivalent of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 or the legislation which has followed it in England and Wales.

While there are Irish censorship laws which apply to publications and films (titled the Censorship of Publications Acts and Censorship of Films Acts, unsurprisingly) these do not apply in the online environment.

This can only be described as a rare example of sensible legislative restraint.

bryanom

Thanks so much 234 + TJM - dont have enough post to thank you the other way (had an old account before the changes last year)

TJM - with the legislative restraint; I presume you mean hard to legislate because why would you want to, whose ethics etc.
My reading to date is suggesting that the CDA in the states has not been a great sucess

TJM

bryanom wrote: »

My reading to date is suggesting that the CDA in the states has not been a great sucess

That may be the understatement of the year.

The usual problems of any censorship system are compounded by the technological illiteracy of governments when it comes to the online environment. The Australian experience with their ACMA online censorship system is particularly worrying.

Meanwhile, in an Irish context I'm disappointed to see that the Department of Justice is engaged in attempts to make ISPs introduce an ill-thought out internet filtering system. This would be a non-legislative and unaccountable system were it to be introduced. While the underlying motive (to attempt to stop viewing of child pornography) is undoubtedly sincere, the European experience makes it clear that blocking is ineffective for that purpose, prone to function creep (the documents released under FOI show that the Irish government is already thinking of blocking gambling websites), and dangerous to internet freedom generally. (Extensive study on this point here; my own views 1|2|3).