Ireland adopts Online Safety Code for video-sharing platforms including TikTok
Ireland’s media and internet watchdog, Coimisiún na Meán, has adopted and published an Online Safety Code that will apply to video-sharing platforms headquartered in the country from next month — including the likes of Bytedance’s TikTok, Google-owned YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook Reels.
Under the Code, in-scope platforms are required to have terms and conditions that ban uploads or sharing of a range of harmful content types — including cyberbullying; promoting self-harm or suicide and promoting eating or feeding disorders, in addition to banning content that incites hatred or violence; terrorism; child sex abuse material (CSAM); racism and xenophobia.
The aim of the Code is to address content types that are not directly in scope of the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), Coimisiún na Meán spokesman, Adam Hurley confirmed.
The latter, a pan-EU law, has applied broadly since mid February and is focused on online governance of illegal content (e.g. CSAM), rather than tackling the wider sweep of harms Coimisiún na Meán’s Code aims to address.
