The BBC will listen if you wield an AK47

An interview with the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson, was recently posted online by the Free Speech Debate, a research project at Oxford University.

In the interview Mr Thompson claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is ‘pretty broad shouldered’.  He revealed that producers had to consider the possibilities of ‘violent threats’ instead of polite complaints if they pushed ahead with certain types of satire.

 “Without question, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms’, is different from, ‘I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write’,” he said. “This definitely raises the stakes” said Mr Thompson.

These remarks should concern everyone – not just Christians.  The work we do at Mediawatch benefits those of all faiths and none and we should all be concerned if this is how decisions about broadcasting content are being made.

Children being fed a broadcast diet of degrading behaviour models, inappropriate sexual content and graphic depictions of brutality and violence are unlikely to make violent complaints but the values broadcasters inculcate are undermining cohesion and stability in our society. There may not be violent protests outside Broadcasting House but the results of this play themselves out in our increasingly fractured society.

In the whole debate about the state of our society the media is no innocent bystander. 

No Watershed Online

The UK's video on-demand regulator, ATVOD, recently ruled that Bootybox.tv breached regulations by not preventing under-18s from accessing pornographic content on its website.  ATVOD required the provider to "either remove the hardcore porn content from the service or put it all behind effective access controls which will ensure that only adults can see it".

ATVOD's chief executive Pete Johnson said: "UK providers of hardcore pornography on demand must take effective steps to ensure that such material is not accessible to under-18s.  Asking visitors to a website to click an 'I am 18' button or enter a date of birth or use a debit card is not sufficient - if they are going to offer explicit sex material they must know that their customers are 18, just as they would in the 'offline' world."

This move to protect children from online pornography is most welcome but we are concerned that children remain at risk from other on-demand services.

The catch up services offered by Britain’s main broadcasters do not carry ‘hardcore’ material, but at the beginning of February any child capable of ticking a box to say they are over 16 could access the 18 rated horror film Day of the Dead and Sex: How to do Everything.  Programmes which, we would argue, are potentially harmful.

It is bizarre that broadcasters are, quite rightly, unable to broadcast certain material ‘on air’ until after the watershed but are quite free to broadcast the same material over the internet at any time without there being adequate protection mechanisms in place.

The statutory rules for video-on-demand content are significantly less strict than those for TV broadcasts.  In cases where content "might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of eighteen", providers must make efforts to prevent young people from accessing the material.  We have been told by Ofcom that, in practise, this means material that has been broadcast on television will not seriously impair a child and is not subject to these rules.  

 

We believe that there are feasible steps that can and should be taken by broadcasters to control access to post-watershed material by children.

Who is protecting children online?

You may have noticed that on Wednesday this week Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopaedia, was blacked out.  Users were greeted with a message entitled ‘Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge’ which explained that the US Congress was planning to implement laws which would ‘fatally damage the free and open internet’.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) are currently being considered by Congress because some websites are offering books, films, television programmes and music free of charge thus depriving their creators of earnings.  Critics, which include big names such as Facebook, Ebay and Twitter, argue the laws go much further and amount to an attempt to control the internet.

Regardless of which side of the SOPA/PIPA debate you stand on these are measures which have been designed at the behest of big businesses to protect their interests.

But which powerful corporations are fighting to protect the interests of the victims of the ‘free and open internet’ that enables children to have pornography streamed into their bedrooms and allows sociopaths to encourage the vulnerable to commit suicide?  How many global websites have blacked out to show their support for those who are being damaged by such content?

These are the interests which need real protection.

That is why we are supporting Claire Perry MP’s proposal for an ‘opt-in’ to block adult sites at source unless specifically requested.  One thing is clear: children’s rights are just as important as those of big business.  We fail to protect them at our peril.

Are parents in control?

Mediawatch-UK recently submitted evidence to the Parliamentary Enquiry into Online Child Protection, which is seeking to determine what British Internet Service Providers have done to protect children online and what could best be done to protect them from harmful online material.

As part of our submission we included the results of a survey we conducted amongst our members.  We asked our members whether or not their ISP had ever contacted them with details of the parental controls available as part of their package.

• 80% said their ISPs had never contacted them about parental controls.
• 20% reported that their ISPs had informed them about parental controls. 
• Of those who had been told about parental controls 61% were with TalkTalk.  Approximately 60% of TalkTalk subscribers had been alerted to their provider’s new HomeSafe service. 
• Of members who subscribed to other services only 11% had been told about the parental controls available. 

Of particular concern were a number of BT customers who were under the impression that installing parental controls will cost them a further subscription.

Our sobering statistics show that the majority of internet users are not alerted by to the existence of controls by their ISPs.  It is therefore imperative that ISPs actively communicate to their users the parental tools which are available.

The six largest ISPs in the country control in excess of 90% of the market.  With revenues of more than £3 billion annually these companies must share the responsibility for protecting children online.

There is a suggestion that it is entirely the responsibility of parents to safeguard their children from harmful imagery.  Many parents feel they are able to protect their children by monitoring their browsing histories but new functions such as Google Chrome’s Incognito mean this is no longer the case.  Other parents say that they are not confident in their ability to install a filter. 

It is for this reason that we are supporting the proposal of Claire Perry MP for an ‘opt-in’ system to block adult sites at source unless specifically requested.

Internet firms must block porn

This week the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced that he will be including a measure in the new Communications Act to ensure that it is easier to block adult and age-restricted material from the internet.  Mr Hunt said he wants to see ‘services that are safe for my children’ and he proposes all consumers are offered an active choice about parental controls either at the point of purchase or when they activate an account.

A recent Ofcom survey found the number of parents using filtering software had dropped from about 50 per cent to 40 per cent so this move comes not a moment too soon.  

Research has also shown that not all parents are aware of the controls currently available and that they should be better signposted.  We understand the Government has not ruled out also coming up with a way of getting existing users to make the same active choice.

Although this is most welcome news, these controls will only be effective if they are applied to every device used for accessing the internet including tablets, gaming consoles and mobile phones. 

That is why we will continue our campaign to get Internet Service Providers to block adult material at source.  This would be the best way to stop children accessing potentially harmful material and would not stop adults who wish to see it from opting-in to access it.

Phone hacking and morality

This week has been dominated by the news of ‘phone hacking on an industrial scale by the News of the World.  Each day this week has brought another revelation of the scope of this and the number of people who have been targeted. 

We learnt yesterday that the News of The World will be closed.  The paper’s position was increasingly untenable; because of concerted campaigns waged using social media it was haemorrhaging advertisers and many readers were planning a boycott.

The paper’s parent company, News Corps is proposing to take over BSkyB which would give it, with its strong newspaper portfolio, a dominant position in the UK media.  Until the beginning of this week it looked like the Culture Secretary was likely to accept this deal but somewhere in the region of 200,000 people have contacted him to protest, pushing any further decision back until September.

Public support has also pushed politicians to start speaking out.  This is something of a watershed moment as politicians have long been loath to attack the Murdoch empire which is seen to have the power to make or break governments.  At an emergency debate in Parliament phrases such as ‘we've fallen for threats’, ‘we've colluded for too long’ and ‘we were not courageous enough’ were used. 

These public outpourings illustrate the considerable power that we as individuals hold if we work together.  If we don’t speak out our silence condones the status quo which is why individuals making their views known is so important.

However, perhaps we should not be so surprised by this week’s revelations.  We have long held that the media we consume affects our behaviour.   Perhaps the absence of morality in sourcing stories is the logical outcome of abdicating moral responsibility for that which is put out.

Violent video games and aggressive behaviour

This week the makers of the Call of Duty series of violent video games announced advance details of the next title in the series.  Modern Warfare 3 is not due to go on sale until November but the advance trailer features scenes of destruction on the London tube and the Houses of Parliament.

We were called by several news outlets who wanted our view of the game.   We walk a fine line when commenting on games like this because scenes are often inserted which are likely to attract protest thus creating a media buzz and selling more copies.  Because we’ve not yet been able to play the game or see anymore than the contents of the trailer we weren’t prepared to comment beyond saying that ,coming so close on the back of the 7/7 inquests which showed the devastating effects of an attack on the tube, including this in the game would appear to be cynical and in poor taste.

We did however make clear our concerns that, despite age ratings on games, young children continue to gain access to violent games designed for adults and we urged parents to be aware that games are rated because of their content rather than their perceived difficulty, popular games rated 18 are not suitable for children to play.

This is particularly relevant in the light of a new study from the University of Missouri has found violent video game players become less responsive to violence which predicts an increase in aggression.

During the study, 70 young adult participants were randomly assigned to play either a nonviolent or a violent video game for 25 minutes. Participants then competed against an opponent in a task that allowed them to give their opponent a controllable blast of loud noise. The level of noise blast the participants set for their opponent was the measure of aggression.

The researchers found that participants who played one of several popular violent games, such as Call of Duty, were more aggressive than participants who played a nonviolent game.

In addition, for participants that had not played many violent video games before completing the study, playing a violent game in the lab caused a reduced brain response to photos of violence - an indicator of desensitization.  Participants who had already spent a lot of time playing violent video games before the study showed small brain response to the violent photos, regardless of which type of game they played in the lab.

Bruce Bartholow, the associate professor of psychology who conducted the study, said that future research should focus on ways to moderate the effects of media violence.  He cited surveys that indicate that the average American school child spends more than 40 hours a week playing video games - more than any other activity besides sleeping.  He warned that as children spend so much time with video games, they could become accustomed to violent behaviour as their brains are forming.

"More than any other media, these video games encourage active participation in violence," he said. "From a psychological perspective, video games are excellent teaching tools because they reward players for engaging in certain types of behaviour. Unfortunately, in many popular video games, the behaviour is violence."