Le 24 juin 2019, le Régulateur irlandais a publié un rapport visant à participer à la consultation publique lancée par le ministère de la Communication, portant à la fois sur la façon dont il convient de transposer la directive européenne sur les services audiovisuels  et sur la perspective d'une loi nationale sur la "régulation des contenus dommageables sur les plateformes en ligne".

Pour le Régulateur, le rapprochement des deux actes législateurs offre une opportunité d'une régulation globale des "médias en ligne", offrant à l'internaute une "sécurité" que la simple transposition de la Directive ne permet pas. Ainsi la seconde loi complétera la première.

Pour le Régulateur, la loi nationale à adopter doit permettre au Régulateur de donner une pleine sécurité à l'internaute irlandais ("online safety"), en retirant les contenants violents ou dommageables (le terme harmful est difficile à traduire par un seul mot en français) et en l'avertissant à propos de ceux-ci. 

Comme l'explicite le rapport (p.52) :

The BAI considers that the following four strategic objectives and responsibilities are relevant for an online safety regulator operating within the new media regulatory structure: • Rectifying serious harms occurring to Irish residents through their use of online services. • Ensuring that individuals and members of groups that are frequently subject to harmful online content can fully benefit from digital technology and social media. • Reducing online harms by introducing online safety rules for online platforms. • Promoting responsibility and awareness of online safety issues among the general population and industry. To fulfil these objectives and responsibilities, the BAI considers that the Online Safety Regulator could have the following three functions:

1. Operating a statutory mechanism to remove harmful online content that directly affects Irish residents (Rectification of Harm)

2. Developing and enforcing an online safety code for Irish-resident online platforms (Minimisation of the potential for Harm)

3. Promoting awareness of online safety issues among the public and industry (Preventing Harm). Ensuring that online services play a more effective role in tackling online safety issues can provide wide, “collective” benefits to large numbers of individuals simultaneously.

Visant expressément Youtube et Facebook, qui en Europe ont choisi de se localiser en Irland, le Régulateur demande une Régulation des plateformes de partage de vidéos qui doit, à travers un Code s'appliquant à eux, permettre de régir leur activité qui se déploie à travers toute l'Europe. Ce Code aurait vocation à rappeler en premier le principe de la libre expression. Tout en organiser la "sécurité en ligne" de l'internaute.

Le Régulateur irlandais des Médias sera en charge de cela. Et puisque les opérateurs sont localisés en Irlande, ses conceptions et ses actions auront donc un effet européen : comme le dit le Président de l'Autorité de Régulation lui-même : " This is a particularly important issue for this country, given that many of the majoar international platforms are based her. Ireland has a unique opportunity - and responsability - to lead the debate and chart the way forward in relation to online safety and regulation". 

____

"to lead" ?

Il n'est pas certain que les autres régulateurs nationaux ni la Commission européenne partagent une telle conception irlando-centriste de la régulation euroréenne des médias.

The theme of the relationship between regulation and innovation finds every day new illustrations. The example of the drone is particularly noteworthy.

Indeed, the drone is a technical object that moves in the air without being driven in an immediate way by the hand of man.

The legal mechanism of qualification brought the drone in the category of "aircraft" and submit it to the regulatory power of the civil aviation regulator.

The regulation of civil aviation is primarily a safety regulation, not a regulation of the sector's economic deployment.

This is why regulators have taken restrictive positions on drones used for commercial purposes, to the extent that the presence of human beings, most the pilots, are the condition for the safety of people. The fact that the drones fly with "no one" led to consider as a danger a prior, which led regulators to take restrictive measures on flying drones for commercial purposes, restricton consistent with the regulator's intervention criteria, without taking into account external rules, such as the protection of privacy.

But whatever the sector, regulators see themselves increasingly as economic regulators. If we adopt this perspective, a restrictive approach appears to be nonsense.

In the interests of balance in both approaches, the safety of people and the economic development through innovation, the US civil aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration is developing new rules.

February 11, 2015, Federal Aviation Administration raised the need for a legal framework for commercial drones. The reason for this is economic. As it writes: "It is anticipated that this activity will result in significant economic benefits".  Indeed, Article 333 of the 2012 ACT of modernization and reform  imposes registration procedure for every commercial unmanned flying object in the sky!footnote-28. But this hinders business development, and therefore the incentive to technical innovation drone.

It was necessary to find a balance between security of persons and lifting of barriers to economic development. This is why the FAA will distinguish between "small" and other drones. The former are particularly useful in agriculture. To the extent that the former do not constitute danger to persons, an exemption from this procedure (Article 333 exemption) may be given concerning them.

One can analyze this evolution of air Regulation in two ways. First, it is for air regulator to take into account fundamental innovation of flying machines with "no one": innovation will be the base of a huge market for which strict regulatory rules could have been the troublemaker. The consideration of the safety of people remains since only drones "small" are allowed. In addition, they will have to remain at low level and away from airports and housing.

Second, the Regulator reacts by pragmatism. The ban on commercial flight drones hasn't prevented investment in this area. So far, the regulator had instead chosen not to react to the open violations of the standards, from the moment that the safety of the people wasn't in danger. The idea of the new conception is to promote this new market by putting the rules protecting the physical safety of people.