Regulating social media: Just do it!

When a national leader is tackled about a problem he or she doesn’t feel able to fix, they will often be heard to say in an anguished sort of way, yes, something must be done, but because it’s an international issue we must have a global solution. That in part was Leo Varadkar’s reaction to the failure of social media platforms such as Facebook to ensure that violent and racist content is not published.

It’s normally a recipe for doing nothing. There might, possibly, be research programmes and regional conferences climaxing in an international assembly at which anguished calls for a global solution will be made. At a regional level, we have seen the failure of the EU to crush the mafia gangs that get their hands on the billions of euros intended for infrastructure work in Eastern Europe and southern Italy.

There is one country that has no truck with waiting for international solutions: China polices the internet. It’s done for all the very wrong reasons, but it has the expertise, the kit — known in the trade as the Great Firewall of China — and most crucially it has the will that our leaders appear to lack.