Social Media

Laws that are premised on the traditional notions of obscenity and indecency will not help to keep children safe online, an academic has warned. Existing laws that are reliant on a standard of ‘morality’ and obscenity have proven to be ineffective for regulating adult pornography on the

EU plans to hold major online platforms like Facebook and Twitter accountable for illegal and harmful content are gathering pace after political agreement was reached between the European Parliament and member states over the weekend. The Digital Services Act (DSA), proposed by the European Commissi

Belfast-based KRW LAW LLP has been instructed by British politician George Galloway to issue legal proceedings against Twitter if it does not withdraw a designation of his account as linked to the Russian state. The law firm alleges that Twitter has breached Mr Galloway's personal data rights, defam

The European Union has reached political agreement on landmark new legislation aimed at addressing "systemic misbehaviour" among so-called Big Tech companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) will blacklist certain practices used by large platforms acting as &

Mark Zuckerberg may be forced to pay UK Facebook users about £50 each if a legal case succeeds. Competition law academic Liza Lovdahl Gormsen is to lodge a case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, on behalf of 44 million users between 2015 and 2019, The Times reports.

Rohingya refugees in the UK and US are suing social media giant Facebook for $150 billion over allegations that the platform helped to promote violence against the minority group in Myanmar. Facebook previously apologised in 2018 for not "doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to

Social media companies will have to hand over details of anonymous users who make defamatory posts under a new Australian law. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said legislation requiring Facebook and Twitter to reveal the identities of trolls would be introduced in the country's parliament this week.

Facebook could be forced to sell off Giphy, one of the largest online platforms for animated GIFs, following concerns raised by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA has provisionally found Facebook's $400 million merger with Giphy will harm competition between social media platf

UK government plans to address ‘legal but harmful’ online content threaten freedom of speech and would be ineffective, peers have warned. Instead, existing laws should be enforced properly and any serious harms not already illegal should be criminalised, according to a House of Lords Com

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has written to four of the biggest social media platforms to urge them to do more to prevent illegal gatherings being organised on their platforms during the pandemic. Mr Varadkar has sent letters to Facebook, Twitter, Google and TikTok asking them what more they can do

Proposed legislation to establish a "first-of-its-kind" online safety regulator will undergo pre-legislative scrutiny by an Oireachtas committee starting today. The joint committee on media, tourism, arts, culture, sport and the Gaeltacht, which is progressing the bill "as a priority", will hear a b

Ireland's data protection watchdog has imposed a €450,000 fine on Twitter following a landmark inquiry regarding a data breach. The Data Protection Commission found that the social media giant infringed Article 33(1) and 33(5) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in terms of a fa

Social media companies will face fines of up to €20 million or 10 per cent of turnover, whichever is higher, for failing to comply with new online safety and media regulation laws. The government yesterday announced new provisions in the finalised general scheme of the Online Safety and Media R

Apple is in breach of European privacy law by tracking iPhone users without their consent, privacy activist Max Schrems has said. The campaigner, who previously waged a legal war against Facebook, forcing it to change the way it transfers data, has now filed complaints to Spanish and German authorit

The highest court in Austria has ruled that Facebook must remove all defamatory comments made about a politician who beat the social media giant in court. Eva Glawischnig, 51, sued Facebook after it refused to remove abusive posts by a user who wrongly referred to her as a “lousy traitor&rdquo