Social Media

A new working group established by government is to draw up a national strategy on countering disinformation by the end of the year, according to reports. Helmed by Martina Chapman, national co-ordinator of Media Literacy Ireland, the working group will also work to improve compliance in Ireland wit

TikTok has been fined €5 million by France's data protection watchdog over violations of EU cookie rules. Regulator CNIL said users of the tiktok.com website could not refuse cookies as easily as accepting them, and were not informed in a sufficiently precise manner of the purposes of different

Ireland's privacy watchdog is facing a court battle over its "untenable" decision that a Facebook data leak did not amount to a data breach. The Data Protection Commission (DPC) last year imposed a €265 million fine on Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL) following its investigation into the d

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) has imposed fines totalling €390 million on Meta Ireland in connection with its Facebook and Instagram platforms. Meta has said it strongly disagrees with the DPC's findings and will "appeal the substance of the decision" in the Irish courts.

Ireland's data protection watchdog has launched an inquiry into media reports of a Twitter data breach affecting millions of users. In a statement issued just before Christmas, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) said it had launched an own-volition inquiry pursuant to section 110 of the Data Prote

Landmark legislation establishing a regulatory framework for online safety overseen by the new Coimisiún na Meán has been signed into law. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 will allow for the appointment of an online safety commissioner empowered to make binding online sa

Facebook owner Meta is set to be told it cannot force users of its services to agree to personalised ads in what privacy campaigners have said will be a "huge blow to Meta's profits in the EU". The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) yesterday said it had adopted three binding decisions addressing

New EU rules regulating large online platforms classified as "digital gatekeepers" have come into force and will be implemented within months. The EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) was proposed by the European Commission in December 2020 and agreed by the European Parliament in record time in March 2022.

Irish and US law firms are in talks about bringing a major lawsuit against social media platforms over their alleged failure to protect the privacy and data of billions of people. Media lawyer Paul Tweed confirmed to Irish Legal News that he is in talks with a number of large US-based firms about br

A draft decision in a large-scale investigation of a Facebook data breach has been submitted by Ireland's data protection watchdog to other EU authorities. The Data Protection Commission (DPC) commenced the inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL), which operates Facebook, in April 2021 af

Social media companies must be held legally responsible for what users post on their platforms in order to protect individuals from defamation, harassment and abuse, the Law Society of Northern Ireland's centenary conference heard. Friday's conference closed with a panel discussion chaired by well-k

Clare Daly, child law solicitor with Comyn Kelleher Tobin (CKT), discusses Ireland’s evolving online safety legislation and the decision from the expert review group that an independent complaints mechanism within the new regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, is "feasible". An inquest ha

A town in the Netherlands has launched legal proceedings against Twitter after false claims of a local paedophile network were circulated online. Bodegraven-Reeuwijk, a municipality in the west of the country with a population of around 34,000, has been at the centre of absurd conspiracy theories al

A draft decision in a large-scale investigation of TikTok's processing of children's data has been submitted by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) to other EU authorities. The investigation is one of two own-volition inquiries into TikTok launched by the DPC in September 2021.

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has imposed a record €405 million fine on Instagram after a two-year investigation into its processing of children's data, according to reports. The regulator adopted its final decision last Friday and will publish further details about it next week, a