Social media sites cannot have it their own way

WHILE I for one cannot imagine a world without my daily newspaper, particularly on a Sunday when there is time to get immersed in the detail and real stories behind the week’s news, the advance of the social networking sites may ultimately take this pleasure away from us.

A recent survey in the US found that more than 30% of adult Americans regarded Facebook as their primary source of news, with Facebook’s advertising revenue now approaching $20bn.

Of course Facebook and Twitter do not produce any of the news that people are accessing.

They merely ‘host’, or provide links, to the news that legacy media spend a fortune on developing and writing.

Until Facebook, Twitter and international social media platforms decided to establish their headquarters in Ireland, it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to take legal action against them when they were safely ensconced in the United States with First Amendment and other protections.

Of course, money talks and with Ireland’s favourable tax and other incentives, it is understandable that these internet media giants should have taken advantage of our corporate-friendly zone. However, in doing so, not only have they submitted to European and Irish defamation, privacy and data protection laws but, by incorporating as Irish companies, they may have inadvertently lost the protection of the US Speech Act. This legislation was introduced to discourage US citizens and companies from suing each other on this side of the Atlantic.

However, these are likely to be minor inconveniences for multibillion dollar enterprises which are not subject to the same level of press regulation and standards imposed on the traditional media.

The Press Ombudsman and Press Council have no jurisdiction over them and although they are submitting to our laws out of necessity, the sheer scale and expanse of their networks has not only made content more difficult to monitor and control, but has also facilitated the aggregation of selected news and stories from the national press, with little or none of the accountability which is currently imposed on the print media.

The social networking sites have none of the enormous expenses associated with investigative journalism and traditional news

Journalism should be protected at all costs

reporting, yet are able to earn huge profits from an everincreasing market share.

Little wonder, then, that the litigation battlefield has shifted dramatically to the online world in recent times, with the ordinary man on the street unlikely to have

the financial means to take on the media giant they have helped to create in the first place.

As a lawyer who regularly acts for both the defamed individual and also a number of publishers, I have mixed views regarding the prevailing Irish defamation laws.

While on the one hand it is not only difficult, if not impossible, to justify a €1m-plus jury award, on the other hand I believe that it is only fair and appropriate that 12 members of the public should be entitled to sit in judgment of the newspaper industry they support. It is really a question of balance. However, it cannot be in anyone’s interest for such massive punitive awards of this level being imposed on a print media already struggling against declining revenues and competing with the ravenous social networking sites. The press, and investigative journalism in particular, should be protected at all costs, while at the same time accuracy, fairness and balance should be encouraged in reporting standards. While a jury award has and should act as a deterrent, the fundamental problem in the era of the internet is that the major international platforms and internet service providers are multi-billion dollar operations that will hardly be shaking in their boots at the threat of having to pay out even several hundred thousand euros in damages.

The question, therefore, is whether separate standards, and more importantly penalties, should be introduced to deal with an innocent or reasonable mistake on the part of a newspaper journalist, as opposed to a deliberate, vindictive attack on a social networking site, particularly in circumstances where a formal takedown request has been ignored.

We are living in a new era, and the value of the print media, like water, will only really be missed when we do not have it. Before the traditional press as we know it evaporates completely, there is still time to level the playing field, or at least adjust the balance by ensuring that the social-networking sites and internet providers are made subject to the same level of legislative control.

While I firmly believe that our defamation, privacy and dataprotection laws are necessary to protect the man on the street, nevertheless it is somewhat unfair that a sword of Damocles should hang over the traditional press without similar consequences for the new media.

The key here is access to justice… for all.