Have your say: a real chance to see real change

Last year the Government announced that it had worked with Internet Service Providers to come up with a voluntary industry agreement to protect children online.  It was a great step forward but it can only be really effective if accompanied by robust age-verification for users which is sadly lacking from the industry’s own proposals. 

If we rely solely on a self-regulation we will have no long term security.  It may be that under intense political and media pressure today the industry will get its house in order, but where will we be in five, ten or twenty years’ time?  If it is true, as the Prime Minister has said, that ‘few things are more important than this,’ why is it that we have laws on myriad eventualities but nothing in relation to one of the most important areas currently affecting us and our children?

We believe that self-regulation is not a long term solution and that statutory backing is needed.  As you know, we have been supporting Baroness Howe’s Online Safety Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords at the end of last year.  The Bill, should it become law, would provide the statutory underpinning presently lacking.

However, Baroness Howe’s Bill is a private members bill and, although it received the overwhelming support of all the peers that attended its second reading, the passage of such bills is notoriously precarious unless they are allocated government time.

We are delighted to report that yesterday Baroness Howe put forward an amendment to the government’s Children and Families Bill with very similar clauses to her original Bill.  This is a wonderful opportunity to future-proof online child protection moving forward.

The Bill will be debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday 28th January.  We understand that the Labour Party will be supporting the amendment and, if the cross bench peers also supported it, there is a very good chance that it could become law.

If you agree that its time the law was used to protect children in the online environment as it is offline please email a cross bench peer and encourage them to attend The House on 28th January and support the Bill.

We have updated our campaign website, www.safeonline.org.uk, to enable you to do this quickly and easily. 

Time is of the essence but this is such a wonderful opportunity to have a real influence we hope you won’t want to miss it.

Fit for purpose?

This week I have spent quite a bit of time fielding calls from journalists; most of them want to talk about two news stories which broke this week.

The first is news that the British Board of Film Classification has announced that, following public consultation, they will be making changes to their classification guidelines.  The positive changes include a tightening up of the language permitted in U certificate films. Greater weight will be given to the impact of tone and atmosphere in films issued with parental guidance (PG) and suitable for 12-year-olds and over (12A) certificates.  That is, regulators will take into account the impact of what the viewer thinks they have seen as well as what they have actually seen.

After asking the public, the BBFC decided that there will be more flexibility for strong language in films given a 15 certificate.  The BBFC’s accompanying report stated that there had been a softening of attitudes toward the most offensive words “especially among younger respondents” which begs the question has offensive language been normalised because it has become so ubiquitous?  The report stated that “by aged 15, most parents argued that it was ‘game over’ and they could no longer control their child’s viewing. Film classification was fairly low on the list of things to worry about regarding their child”.  How very sad!  With childhood being assaulted on so many fronts it is hard to protect young adults but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.

The report also revealed that sexualised content in some music videos and ease of accessibility to online pornography was also a public worry.  How extraordinary then that this report should be released on the very day that such content made its way to the small screen.

The second story which many journalists have called me about this week is what took place in the Celebrity Big Brother house on Sunday evening.  Although always provocative this series has been particularly notable for graphic sexual content and on Sunday it reached a new low. 

The contestants were set the task of producing an 18 rated broadcast.  Housemates were provided with latex outfits and props reminiscent of a pornographic film and plied with alcohol to remove any inhibitions.  What ensued, in the words of one of the housemates, was ‘crudity and filth’.

The broadcast included simulated sexual acts and pole dancing with overtones of prostitution.  It is worth noting that in our society pole dancing is confined to licensed establishments operating adult only viewing, something which cannot be said to apply to Channel 5 at 9pm on a Sunday evening.  The end result was footage with the tone and spirit of a pornographic film.

We have written to Ofcom and asked them to investigate, setting out why we believe this programme to be in breach of the Broadcasting Code.  We have pointed out that extra care should have be taken because its 9pm slot, coupled with the large amount publicity it receives, makes it very likely to be viewed by a young audience.

We are also concerned that this extreme sexual material is easily available to children via Channel 5’s on-demand service.  These broadcasts have attracted much media attention and it likely that children’s interest will be piqued as a result.  All that stands between them and such content is a tick box confirming that the viewer is over 16.  This is not enough protection and, although a parental control service is available, to our knowledge it has never been advertised on screen so parents are only likely to know about it if they have accessed such a programme themselves.  This means that in practice this broadcast is easily accessible to the majority of children.

We have also written to the on-demand regulator, ATVOD, and asked them what can be done to protect children from such material.  ATVOD have done some great work in targeting websites offering pornographic content without robust age verification and although in the past they have not considered the sites of broadcasters to be hosting material which might ‘seriously mentally, physically or morally’ harm a child broadcasts like this show that this is an argument which is wearing pretty thin.  

If you would like to have your say about this (or any other) broadcast you can do this via the regulators’ website Parentport.  So far Ofcom have received nearly 400 complaints about Celebrity Big Brother and I’m hoping that they will investigate and deal with the programme accordingly.   

Let 2014 be the year in which Ofcom finally shows its teeth.

Vivienne Pattison

Director

Looking forward into 2014

Looking back at 2013 I think we can be very proud of what has been achieved and I’d like to thank you very much for your continued support which stimulated such positive change.

In July the Prime Minister announced in a landmark speech that every household in the UK is to have pornography filtered by their internet provider as a default unless they choose to opt-in to receive it.  This is a hugely encouraging development but we remain convinced that the best approach to ensure these pledges are actually delivered on is by changing the law.  This is why we are continuing to work in support of Baroness Howe’s Online Safety Bill (which recently had its second reading with overwhelming support) which would make this a reality.

Also this summer, as a result of pressure from the public and organisations including Mediawatch, the Co-op took the brave decision to no longer stock publications with sexually provocative covers unless they were supplied in modesty bags by their publishers.  The store admitted it would lose money as a result of the move but it decided to put its customers’ concerns before profit.

2014 will be landmark year for Mediawatch-UK.  It will be 50 years since Mary Whitehouse issued her call to arms at Birmingham Town hall in 1964 and we will be marking the occasion with a series of initiatives.  As you can see we are adopting a new logo for our anniversary year which we hope will remind people of our longevity and the continued support for our campaign.

Beginning on 1^st January we will be tweeting a quote from Mary Whitehouse’s writing every other day.  It is ironic that much of what we know about her views has come to us filtered by the media itself. This will be an opportunity to hear Mary Whitehouse in her own words taken from the books she wrote during her lifetime.  I think many people will find it quite surprising.

You can follow the initiative on Twitter - @MrsMWhitehouse and Facebook - www.facebook.com/MrsMaryWhitehouse and we will also be updating our dedicated website – www.marywhitehouse.com – with the quotes.  If you are not a Twitter or Facebook user you can subscribe on the website and you’ll receive an email every time a new quote is added.

We hope that you have a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.  

Vivienne Pattison

Director

Business needs to take its responsibilities seriously

This week it emerged that pornographic channels were available for viewing on televisions at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.  The televisions were showing Freeview Channels including the adult rated Babestation.  The situation only came to light when a father who had spent the night on a ward with his sick child found what was available and complained to the hospital.

The hospital swiftly blocked the channels when alerted to their availability and expressed their thanks to the family who discovered the problem.

Earlier this year we found a similar situation existed in Youth Hostels across the country with pornographic material freely available on television in bedrooms and public areas.  When we pointed this out the Youth Hostel Association thanked us for alerting them and acted quickly to block these channels but, once again, it took a concerned member of the public to raise the alarm before the channels were removed.

As we reported last week, it was our research which found that Tesco had misled the Prime Minister by failing to set filters on their mobile phones and thereby making pornography freely available to all their customers.  Baroness Howe drew heavily on our research when she broke this news in the House of Lords.

The Minister thanked us for bringing the situation to light and sought assurances from Tesco Mobile that situation would be rectified.

It is shameful that these issues only came light as a result of Mediawatch and members of the public sounding the alarm.  It should not be up to us or consumers to blow the whistle on breaches like this.  Why is there no ‘official’ body testing the veracity of statements that companies make.  There is clearly an urgent need for such a safeguard.

These three instances illustrate just how important it is for us all to highlight concerns when we find such breaches.  If you come across such egregious violations please do let us know so that we can take them up on your behalf.

Baroness Howe’s revelations led to considerable media interest to which Tesco responded with a statement that they ‘currently direct our customers to our free parental controls service which provides robust content management and this service can be switched on at any time’.  This is quite extraordinary because this is not what happened to our tester when we conducted our research.

At the point of purchase she asked for all adult content to be removed from internet access on all the phones. The salesman agreed and proceeded with the sale.  After discovering that by typing ‘porn’ into the mobile browser gave access to unfiltered content she contacted Customer Services at Tesco Mobile and was initially told that they would ‘set the block’ and, when a subsequent test revealed that pornography was still available on the browser, she was told that a block was in place but it wasn’t very good and Tesco had no plans to make their system more robust.

This happened in October 2013 so, to test whether or not any changes had been made, our tester purchased a further contract phone from Tesco on 29^th November.  At point of purchase she was assured that all porn would be blocked but, on testing, it was found that this was not the case. 

Interestingly, when one of our number was talking to the Minister following the House of Lords debate he seemed to think that Tesco did not realise that filters were not on and that the whole thing was an accident which is quite extraordinary.  We have passed on details of our research to disabuse him of this notion. 

We will continue to press for legislation to back up voluntary industry agreements and to put robust age verification processes in place.  It is clear that these measures are urgently needed so that big business takes its responsibility to children seriously.

Keeing children Safeonline - have your say

This has been another week of good news!

On Monday the Prime Minister hosted a summit at Downing Street which was attended by Internet Service Providers, leading search engines and police agencies.  They discussed the protection of children from harmful online material and the blocking of child abuse and other illegal content.

We are delighted to report that significant progress was made.

Google and Microsoft agreed to measures to make it harder to find images of child abuse online.  As many as 100,000 search terms will now return no results that find illegal material, and will trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal and details of sources of help to those who would benefit from it.

Google and Microsoft also agreed to work with the National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation to bring forward a plan to tackle peer to peer networks featuring child abuse images.  Mr Cameron said the next stage was to target the "dark internet" - secret and encrypted networks are increasingly being used by paedophiles and other criminals - where people share images online without making them publicly available.

Progress was also announced on plans to protect children from potentially harmful online content.

TalkTalk and Sky announced that they are now automatically switching on filters for all new broadband account holders.  New users are asked, the first time they connect, whether they want to activate family-friendly filters.  These are switched on as a default unless users ask for them to be removed.  The other remaining ‘big four’ ISPs (Virgin and BT) have confirmed they will follow shortly.

These providers also confirmed that all their customers with an existing internet connection will be required to choose whether to switch on a whole home family friendly internet filter by the end of next year.

This is clearly a great step in the right direction but most of the UK’s children’s charities believe that the best way to protect children online is for adult content to be blocked as a default, with adults wishing to receive it opting-in to do so.

We cannot afford to become complacent.  This ‘default-on’ option will not offer the same degree of protection as the ‘opt-in’ option.

• It is a voluntary arrangement and will have no statutory backing
• There are very real concerns about the weak age-verification procedures that the industry proposes
• It is a promise that has yet to be delivered
• Currently it  only applies to large ISPs and not smaller ones

You can help make these protections much stronger:

As you know, Baroness Howe has introduce The Online Safety Bill with the aim of reducing children and young people’s access to inappropriate, potentially harmful, material online.

This week it was confirmed that the Bill will have its second reading in the House of Lords on 6^th December 2013.  

The Bill will help parents protect their children from accidentally or deliberately stumbling across inappropriate material by requiring:

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile phone operators (MPOs) to provide, as a default, an internet service without access to pornography - with adult subscribers able to opt-in to receive such material.
• The provision of really robust age-verification procedures.
• Electronic device manufacturers to provide a means of filtering internet content at the time of purchase.

The Bill will also help parents to deal with online behavioural challenges like cyber bullying and sexting by requiring that parents are provided with information that will help their children navigate these challenges:

• First ISPs/MPOs are required by law to make available information about online safety - which would be broader than just filtering information - as part of their on-going relationship with subscribers.
• Second, the Secretary of State is required to provide parents with information to help them educate their children about online challenges.

If you agree that these measures would offer children the best protection from harmful online content
we have updated our campaign website, Safeonline.org.uk,
so that you can have your say quickly and easily.

Many of you have already used the website to great effect.  Now that we have a confirmed date for the Second Reading please would you take the time to email a member of the House of Lords in advance of the debate urging them to go along and support the Bill.

The site is very simple to use.  There are tips on what to say in your letter and, if you are really pushed for time, there are also four form letters which you can cut and paste into your email.

Baroness Howe is grateful for all that you have done to support The Bill so far.  Online child protection is a now a really hot political issue, let’s use this momentum to ensure that children really are Safeonline!

The BBC: a chance to have your say

 Once again, the BBC is in the spotlight.

Last month the Conservative chairman, Grant Shapps, warned that the corporation could be forced to share part of the licence fee, or see it cut outright, if it fails to improve transparency.

The Director General, Tony Hall, responded with his view that the corporation was “unbelievable value for money” although he acknowledged that it needed to win back the public's confidence that it knew how to spend it.  He also warned that a cut in the licence fee would inevitably force it to cut services and leave the public with "less BBC".

What do you think?  Two opportunities for you to say have your say have just been announced:

The BBC Trust has just announced its ‘most ambitious’ review on all four of its TV channels for the first time.  This will include a three-month consultation during which audiences are invited to air their views.

As the BBC's governing body, the Trust's role is to ensure licence fee payers get the best value for money.  If you’d like to take the opportunity to have your say you can do so here; the consultation closes on 14^th February.

BBC Trustee David Liddiment launched the consultation saying "the licence fee places a great obligation on the BBC to be bolder than other broadcasters in delivering ambitious and distinctive programmes for its audiences."   The review will also explore how each channel is responding to changes in audience expectations and the way they view programmes, in response to new technology.

With this in mind, when you respond you might like to mention:

• The drip-drip increase in violent and sexual material in recent dramas which is potentially harmful and should not be considered ‘bold’.
• The lack of proper age verification on post-watershed iplayer content.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport is holding an inquiry into Future of the BBC, ahead of its current Royal Charter ending in December 2016.

The Committee will be examining the role, definition and scope of the BBC as well as its funding and whether the flat-rate licence system should be modified or replaced. The Committee is also interested in seeking views on the governance of the BBC and the links between accountability, performance, and funding.  You can have your say here; submissions should be received by 6^th December.

Alan Yentob recently spoke of BBC management “processes and relationships of labyrinthine and often unnecessary complexity” and the Director General has said that managers “have to get used to spending licence fee payers' money as though it is our own”.

You might like to mention:

• The unacceptability of the BBC’s complicated and opaque complaints procedure.

• The need for increased transparency for, and accountability to, the license fee payer.

• The importance of an entirely separate governing body, detached from day-to-day BBC management.

• Proper representation for the interests of the license fee payer on the BBC Trust.

Good news: covering up the covers

Earlier this year the Co-op took the brave decision to no longer stock publications with sexually provocative covers unless they were supplied in modesty bags by their publishers.  The store admitted it would lose money as a result of the move but it decided to put its customers’ concerns before profit.

Happily this was not an isolated move and there is more positive news to report.

• The Premier Inn hotel chain has announced that it will no longer be stocking lad’s mags in its hotels.
• Numerous outlets have decided that they will no longer stock The Sun until it removes the infamous page 3 topless model.  These include over 20 student’s union shops and hospitals including North Bristol NHS trust.

The most encouraging news has come in the form of a letter which we have seen, sent from the publisher of the Midweek & Sunday Sport to independent newsagents.

The Sport has long been the worst offender when it comes to sexually explicit newspaper covers, regularly featuring soft-porn cover images.  This is one of the reasons that it is not stocked by the big supermarket chains although it is widely available in other outlets.

The publishers write that they are ‘not immune to the increased concern’ about explicit cover images.  They say they are ‘improving the look’ of their publication to ‘avoid cover pictures which could be described as sexualised’ and, in future, they will ‘feature [front cover] pictures… that fall in line with other national newspapers’.

This is wonderful news and further illustration of the fact that public opinion has turned and positive change is coming.

Although this is a step in the right direction there is still much which needs to change in order to clean up the public space and create a healthy environment for children in our society.