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How Big Brother just turkey-slapped the internet

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It may be ending next week but Big Brother is leaving the internet one more legacy before it departs.

THAT turkey-slap in 2006 has resulted in Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) developing a code of practice for live streaming. At the time the incident did not air on television, but it was seen by a small proportion of viewers on live on the internet -creating a classification inconsistency.

At the time of the Big Brother incident, then Minister for Communications, Senator Helen Coonan, said that Schedule 5 of the Broadcasting Services Act inadequately regulated online content because it only covered material that has been recorded and then stored on servers.

Live “non-news” content likely to attract a rating of RC, X18+, R18+ or MA15+ by ACMA will be prohibited from live streaming under the code.

Hosted or “non-live” content will now need to be classified by either ACMA or a trained assessor, hired by providers of online and mobile content, according to the ratings classification scheme.

The new rules also apply to 3G mobile streaming.

According to John Hilvert, communications director of IIA, the new code provides ACMA and content providers with greater certainty in how to deal with content that may cause problems with the community, and to protect children.

“The issue that triggered this current code was the appalling “turkey slapping” incident on Big Brother,” Hilvert told ZDNet.com.au. “The previous government felt that was an anomaly because, in that case, what was considered unsuitable for TV could be found on the website of Channel 10.”

“Channel 10 was showing material which was not properly classified in the same way as it would have been for TV,” Hilvert added.

The impact the code will have on the state of digital content remains to be seen, however, since online content providers hosting information outside Australia’s jurisdiction will remain unaffected. For example, Facebook would be subject to US laws, said Hilvert.

A copy of the code can be downloaded from IIA’s website.

Thanks, Big Brother.

Source: ZDNet.com.au

4 Responses

  1. Censorship of the internet, do we live in a democracy or not . I don’t think we like being told what to do Stephen Conroy. Your no voluntary euthenasia sites ect. what next. If this is allowed to go ahead then our Democracy & free speach what’s left of it with political correctness gone mad one wonders where we will end up. Our right to choose is paramount.

  2. Wasn’t there already a code of practice in place for content on Australian websites? Any content past the M classification has to have credit card verification? It would be a matter of time before live streaming was next in line.

    I remember a number of websites simply shifted their hosting to overseas to bypass any censorship concerns.

  3. Context is usually everything for ACMA. 2 males holding down a woman and slapping her with a penis is more than nudity. That said it remains to be seen how these recommendations will translate.

  4. Not this crap again.

    The “turkey slap” incident is hardly deserving of an MA15+ rating. Considering the way the scene was depicted, it would have fallen comfortably within the lower end of the M rating.

    Virtually no nudity is depicted as the angle (and lighting) pretty much obscured the genitalia, and although there was obvious genital-to-face contact, the incident was brief, and devoid of any sexual context, thus minimizing the impact that the scene may have had on viewers.

    Frankly, Rima’s explanation of how an orgasm is achieved on last week’s Big Mouth was way more explicit than the silly “turkey slap” which has had an unfortunate impact on Australian TV/internet censorship standards. >:(

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