Irish Examiner view: UK walking the walk by challenging tech giants

UK legislators say tech platforms need to do much more to protect children from being exposed to grooming, bullying, or pornography.

Britain has considered proposals to impose fines of up to 10% of turnover on companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Chinese-owned TikTok if they fail to remove and limit the spread of illegal content. File picture: PA

Twitter has been fined €450,000 by the Irish Data Protection Commission for a data breach. 

The company had inadvertently made some users’ private tweets public. This is the first time the regulator has penalised a tech giant under European GDPR rules. 

Whether such a modest sanction will have any meaningful impact on a business that had a turnover of €2.85bn last year is at best a moot point. It is unlikely to be transformative.

Just as that light-touch sanction was announced, Britain considered proposals to impose fines of up to 10% of turnover on companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Chinese-owned TikTok if they fail to remove and limit the spread of illegal content. 

Britain’s legislators say tech platforms need to do much more to protect children from being exposed to grooming, bullying, or pornography.

It is difficult to see Boris Johnson’s government as a guiding light on any issue but on this pressing one, it may have a more realistic perspective. Let’s follow their example on this one pressing conflict.