Dear Friends,

 

Greetings, and thank you for your support and encouragement!

 

1.  Block Porn Campaign - progress

 

Your support for our email campaign has so far recruited 70 MPs and at least two members of the House of Lords to support Claire Perry MP, which is a high number by Parliamentary standards.  This group have set up a Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection, which has its second meeting with ISPs and experts, about implementing ISP-level pornography filters, on 18 October.

 

This campaign continues to break new ground, but please help us maintain the momentum and, importantly, increase the number of MPs supporting it, especially at a time when the government will be tempted to put all its energies into economic problems.

 

ACTION:  Have you been able to send our Block Porn Campaign letter to your MP yet?  

 

If not, you can find it on the link below, and please forward this email to your contacts and ask friends and family too: 

 

http://www.safermedia.org.uk/2011internetfiltercampaign.htm

 

 

2.  New Ofcom guidance for sexual content on TV pre-watershed

 

In the wake of 4,500 complaints about raunchy dance routines on the X Factor final last year and the Bailey Review on the Sexualisation of Childhood, Ofcom has finally set out new guidance for programmes aired before 9pm when children are most likely to be watching.  This is a turnaround for Ofcom who last year cleared the X Factor for viewing by family audiences, maintaining it was at the ‘very margin of acceptability’, and estimated to have been seen by over a million children. 

 

We have yet to see how effective this new guidance will be but it should encourage all of us that complaints and public criticism of the regulators can bring results.

 

(One word of caution - while we welcome any tightening of the regulations, internet- enabled television and the proliferation of smart phones and other devices, has further undermined the watershed).

 

 

3. Pre-watershed Sex Toy Advert on ITV starting this week

    (Monday 3 October on ITV2, Living, E4 and MTV)

 

According to ‘adult’ retailer Lovehoney, with its £13.5bn turnover, using sex toys can help cut divorce rates, and their ads will be like the Gold Blend advertisements of the 1980s but ‘with added desire’.

 

This comes immediately after Ofcom’s new guidance to broadcasters (see above) to be more careful about programmes they show before the 9pm watershed. Advertisements for sex toys are not suitable for TV at any time, but especially not pre-watershed.

 

ACTION:  Please email/write to the Advertising Standards Authority stating your concern about this development.

www.asa.org.uk

 

4. Please help increase the number of complaints by forwarding this email to your contacts.     We would also be very grateful for your prayers.

With best wishes from the Safermedia Team.