All four UK terrestrial broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4
and Five – have joined with Bebo, Google, AOL, Yahoo! and mobile
phone networks to sign up to the guidelines. They have agreed to
abide by the rules brokered by Government advisors the Broadband
Strategy Group.
"In the linear television world, viewers are familiar with the
tools that have been provided to enable them to make informed
choices about what they and their families watch," say the
guidelines, the Audiovisual Content Information Good Practice
Principles.
"The programme’s scheduling (whether it is broadcast pre or
post-watershed), the announcement before the start of the programme
(perhaps warning that it may contain scenes of violence), the
programme’s title, the viewers’ previous knowledge of the programme
and the brand reputation of the channel all help them to decide
whether a certain piece of content is suitable for viewing or
not."
That kind of guidance is not available for online content which,
once made available, can be watched at any time. The Principles
have been designed to allow viewers or their guardians to know what
kind of content is going to be watched.
The signatories have pledged to give information about "content
that may be harmful or offensive to the general public, and that
may be unsuitable for children and young people. In particular,
content information is designed to enable parents and carers to
exercise supervision over the content viewed by those they are
responsible for," said the Principles.
The Principles only apply to commercially produced content, not
to user-generated content such as home made videos published via
sites such as YouTube. It also does not apply to advertising, which
has its own rules.
The Principles do not dictate a single way in which warnings
should be given, but they do say that they should be " easy to use
and understand; give adequate information to enable the user to
make an informed choice about whether or not to access the content
[and use] plain and consistent language, practical for the medium
in which it is made available."
The new rules were backed by media regulator Ofcom as well as
the BSG, and the move represents the first time that the principles
of mainstream broadcasting content warnings have been applied to
internet-published new media on an industry wide scale.
