New guidelines for online content

UK media and internet companies, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five, Bebo, Google, AOL, Yahoo! and mobile phone networks, have agreed to sign up to guidelines regulating online content.

The ‘Audiovisual Content Information Good Practice Principles’ have been brokered by Government advisors the Broadband Strategy Group.

Under the new rules, information will be provided to enable online viewers to make informed choices about whether or not to view content. Warnings could be introduced to let online viewers know that they might find material offensive, and material could be tagged to indicate suitability.

Companies signing up to the guidelines will promise to provide information about content that could be harmful or offensive to the general public, or which could be unsuitable for children to watch.

The Principles will apply only to commercially produced content, not to the user-generated content which proliferates on sites such as YouTube. Advertising will not be covered by the rules either.

The guidelines are supported by Ofcom and represent the first time that the principles of mainstream broadcasting content warnings have been applied to internet-published new media across the industry.

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