Ireland's Latest Online Safety Law Is Unfair Parallel for Changes in UK's Online Safety Bill

The UK's "Online Safety Bill"proposed by Prime Minister Theresa Mayis getting a lot of attention because it includes a provision that could see senior tech executives prosecuted if they don't do enough to keep kids safe online.

The law is based on an Irish law that went into effect in December and requires online services to regulate specific harmful or illegal content, and it holds executives criminally liable if they don't comply, reports the New York Times.

But the provision in the UK bill "encourages online services to excessively remove content that services must moderate under the child-safety duties but is legal to show adult users," writes Kashmir Nuthi at the Center for Data Innovation in a post at Boing Boing.

"Over-removal on this scale will take many types of content adults want to see online, offline," she writes.

"The provision in Ireland's law mitigates manybut not allof the over-moderation concerns facing the UK proposal by not threatening jail time immediately for every failure to comply with the Irish law's regulations and instead holding employees liable for continued failure to comply after Media Commission orders," she writes.

"This difference will have important consequences," she adds.

"By threatening criminal liability immediately for noncompliance

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