Media censorship for children in the UK - Political Forum

Hadabadah · 03-26-2008, 11:00 PM

In the UK a review of video games and internet sites available to children called the byron review is nearly finished. It is expected to propose far tighter guidelines for video games, completely banning some and to lock up into sites against children and teenagers. It doesnt mean porn or highly violent/illegal sites it means anything with swearing, mild violence, so virtually every online site. Personally I think this is absoloute rubbish and a restriction of freedom. If teenagers exibhit violence then the reason is that the parents dont clamp down on it not because you just shot a nazi in a game. People CAN tell the difference between life and fiction wether they are under 18 or not. Your thoughts?

iTaliAN_ICe · 03-27-2008, 12:06 AM

Sounds a bit ridiculous. Personally, I've always felt that things such as this can only result from a complete misunderstanding of the psychological effects of television and video games. I can understand restricting the sales of games containing excessive amounts of sex and violence, but things like this take censorship too far.

Brother Oz · 03-27-2008, 11:31 AM

What's your source for this? I haven't heard anything about it.

Locking up sites against teenagers and children is completely impractical for ISPs. Schools can and do have such systems, and parents can put them on for their home PCs, but there is no way for it to be done nationally.

Hadabadah · 03-27-2008, 11:53 AM

This is the official website: Department for Children, Schools and Families : Byron Review The government today gave its full support. And your right brother oz i put that badly what i meant was that it would be stricter in schools and that the gov would launch and education/advertisement campaign and possibly(unconfirmed) provide software for parents.It will also require age checks and so on for sites that talk about suicide or self harm. Answered your questions?

Brother Oz · 03-27-2008, 12:44 PM

I've got no problem with schools being strict, because when kids are using the net at school it should be for school work.
As to an education campaign to tell them not to look at self-harm or suicide sites, I've got no problem with that in principle, though I don't think it'll work. In the next town to the east from my city, 17 young people have killed themselves in the last few months, and the Police believe it to be encouraged by certain websites which advocate suicide.
Telling kids to be careful about putting their details on networking sites is also sensible, as there have been various scams done by getting kids' dates of birth and personal details off their Myspace accounts.
On the video games, I notice that what they seem to have found is that children are playing games that are 18-rated when they are too young. That is the parent's fault. It's the parents job not to buy 18-rated games for their kids. If their kids are playing overly violent games, then it's the parent's fault for not stopping them. It's not the government's job to go into people's homes and make sure that people are being good parents with simple things like this.