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Victory for media on proposed online regulation policy

This piece was published first on Journalism.co.za, the website of Wits University’s journalism school.

By Gill Moodie @grubstreetSA

An important concession was won for media freedom in SA this month when the Film and Publication Board (FPB) agreed to extend the existing exemption for media that sign up to the Press Code to a new classification regime that seeks to regulate online.

The FPB’s proposed Draft Online Regulation Policy brought together the South African branch of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) and Press Council of South Africa (under which the Press Code falls).

The three bodies put together a joint submission on the proposed policy.

Essentially, the draft policy is proposing that any form of communication on the internet is to be subject to classification. The intention, says the FPB, is to protect children from inappropriate material but SA’s media houses have been suspicious that it amounts to a Draconian blow to freedom of expression.

The policy demands that anyone posting online pre-classify the material as well as pay classification fees to the FPB. It allows for inspections by FPB and for the board to take down online material.

online-safety-for-kids

Photo credit: IntelFreePress / Foter / CC BY-SA

FOR MORE DETAIL ON THE DRAFT POLICY: What you need to know about proposed ‘sledgehammer’ online classification policy

“The concession that we’ve got is a real victory and hard-won at that,” says Tim Spira, chairman of the IAB’s publishers’ council. “Essentially, it comes off the back of efforts the IAB has been driving along with the Press Council and Sanef for the past 18 months to put together a robust self-regulatory structure for online as well as print.”

Traditionally, the Press Council has been a self-regulating print industry body (broadcasting media is regulated by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa) to adjudicate complaints about the press. Two years ago, the Council extended its mandate to include the online properties of its print members.

While the Council and Press Code was revamped in recent years to became a co-regulatory body (with non-media representatives such as judges and lawyers), the IAB, Council and Sanef have been working on extending the Press Council’s mandate to cover the online publishers of SA who are members of the IAB.

A new draft Press Code and expanded Council structure that includes the IAB was presented at a Sanef AGM meeting this month and was endorsed, Spira told Grubstreet.

“It was well received,” he said. “We got some comments from various people at Sanef, which have now been taken into account and changes made so we are now very close to being able to get this thing off the ground.”

fpbwebsiteJune2015

SEE ALSO: Media-ownership transformation and competition issues are separate issues [ANC Mangaung resolutions]

The most significant changes to the Code are those that apply to online publishing – but not to print – such as user-generated content such as comments and what to do when an error has been made or possible defamation picked up. (Do you take it down or leave it up but add a prominent correction? The new Code goes with the latter.)

“The prescriptions (on user-generated content) are broad and not particularly granular,” Spira says. “So one of the things that publishers will need to do is to have a robust policy on how they handle user-generated content, how they respond when content is flagged, and they will have to apply that policy consistently.”

Other key areas of concern include:

Children (which is particularly pertinent because the intention of the FPB draft policy is the well-being of children), for example, online forums directed at children and the young should be monitored particularly carefully.

Privacy, dignity and reputation because online lives on while a print-only article has a limited life span. For example, attempts to have digital media remove articles that are embarrassing to, but not defamatory of, individuals should be refused – but there is room for discretion. A Council member may decide that an article may remain in the archive of the publication but not indexed by search engines.

Violence and graphic content, e.g., material which, judged within context, should not sanction, promote or glamorise violence or unlawful conduct, or discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or mental or physical disability.

children-using-the-computer

Photo credit: San José Library / Foter / CC BY-SA

The new Code will also say that pictures, video and audio content should not misrepresent or mislead nor be manipulated to do so. Further, because online is so immediate and the first breaking news stories are often published on the basis of limited information, this must be stated as such and new information must be added as soon as it is available.

The expanded Press Code also brings with it a change to the Press Council in terms of funding. Instead of being funded by the Print and Digital Media South Africa industry body, it will be funded directly by Press Council members.

The new Press Code is a significant development for SA’s online industry, says Spira.

“We need to establish codes of accountability in this space. I don’t think it serves anyone for online to be a completely unregulated Wild West environment because ultimately it will hurt consumers, who don’t have protection from unethical practices. By implication, it will hurt the media industry both in terms of its reputation and exposure to very real threats – not just this Film and Publication Board policy but any other attempts to curtail media freedom.

“We embarked on this process before we had any idea of what the FPB had planned – and this is a huge achievement in and of itself.”

However, Spira warns that the exemption does not apply universally but only to online publishers who sign up to the Press Code so it will not apply, for instance, to independent bloggers or company websites or even to the everyday sharing on social media by millions of South Africans.

To this end, the IAB, Sanef and the Press Council have recently submitted a joint response to the proposed FPB policy dealing with the implications for those who fall outside the Press Council net.

SEE ALSO: ANC opens new battlefront against SA media: Print Media Charter

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