The Online Safety Commissioner, Niamh Hodnett, said that she’s concerned about the steep rise of self generated and AI generated child sex abuse material on platforms the watchdog is now regulating
“There are two types we’re concerned about,” said Ms Hodnett, speaking at the launch of Coimisiún na Meán’s three year strategy, promising tougher new rules to protect kids online and stamp out illegal content.
”One is self generated child sex abuse material which is generated by children, often within their bedroom and unbeknownst to their parents. And then the other thing we’re concerned about is AI generated child sex abuse materials, made using artificial intelligence. Both are increasing in prevalence and we’re very concerned about that.”
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Earlier this week, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation reported a 380pc increase in illegal child sexual abuse imagery last year, with almost 8,000 photos and videos generated by artificial intelligence.
Ms Hodnett said that the Irish watchdog is now engaging with online platforms on the issue.
”It’s an area on which we engage with them very early on, and that we’re very concerned about,” she said.
”We have a full arsenal of tools to be able to deal with it.”
Under EU law, Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán, which has responsibility for regulating the European online video output of 15 big tech companies such as Google and Meta that have headquarters in Ireland, can impose multi-billion euro fines on big tech companies.
Coimisiún na Meán’s Digital Services Commissioner, John Evans, said that while big tech platforms have engaged with the regulatory body not all of them appear to adhere to the watchdog’s standards.
“When we were starting out on this journey with some of the platforms, we were getting quite positive engagement,” he said.
”But engagement doesn’t translate necessarily into compliance and that’s what we’re now seeing. If you look to the area of data protection, for example, you can see that that was a difficult journey for the regulator and for the regulated entities, and we’re seeing similar pushback from platforms.”
Under the rollout of the Online Safety Act, enforcement action is set to begin in July.
The Commissioners’ comments came as the chairman of the five-person Coimisiún na Meán body, Jeremy Godfrey, said that the government’s recent decision not to impose a levy on streaming giants such as Netflix did not “undermine” the regulatory body despite the organisation having completed a feasibility study on the matter.
“I don’t think we were thrown under the bus by the minister,” he said. ”It is a policy matter for ministers and it’s an entirely appropriate decision that he made.”
Mr Godfrey said that the feasibility study prepared on the matter would be published in coming weeks.
Like other online safety regulators around Europe, Coimisiún na Meán is still struggling to recruit ‘trusted flaggers’ to act as helpers in identifying extreme and illegal content on social media networks.
Mr Evans said that the watchdog has only recruited one such trusted flagger so far, a year after first appealing for applications and having consulted widely among companies, industry bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) about the role.
The watchdog had hoped to recruit dozens of ‘trusted flaggers’ which, it says, “will have a fast lane when reporting suspected illegal content, where online platforms will be legally obliged to give their notices priority, and to process and decide on these reports without undue delay”.
However, moderators for large social networks often require counselling or supervision given the extreme or upsetting content they monitor.
Coimisiún na Meán, which recently enacted the first part of its Online Safety Code, now employs over 200 people and has outlined plans to support a more diverse media landscape and public service journalism.
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