Assignments, Homework, Research, Unit 7, Written Assignments

Unit 7: Assignment 2 (Final Version)

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Ethical issues

The 4 organisations which I have chosen to write about are:

  • BBFC
  • BCAP
  • PEGI
  • NUJ

BBFC (otherwise known as the British Board of Film Classification) is a voluntary independent organisation not tied to the government which gives age ratings for films (includes DVD’s and cinemas), videos and TV. These ratings have been applied to ensure that the content doesn’t offend any viewers who are too young to see the material or don’t wish to see certain material. Ratings include Uc (Universal for Children), U (Universal), PG (Parental Guidance), 12, 12A, 15, 18 and R18. Content which decides on the rating a movie is given includes drugs, horror, discrimination, sex and nudity, violence, imitable behaviour and strong language. Its key aims cover limiting accessibility to certain content so parents can make suitable choices for what they want their children to watch so that they don’t access content which may harm their development. With respect to being aware of the freedom of choice for adults as long as it abides by the law and being an affordable solution to media industries to get their content officially regulated and certified.

A good example of this was the Jamie Bulger case which sadly led to his death at the age of 2 on February 12th, 1993. The movie in question: Child’s Play 3, was given a certificate rating of 18 by this company; the film features quite graphic content. It included scenes where a doll by the name of ‘Chucky’ is killed by having paint chucked at him and his face being pulped (or crushed in other words). The 10-year-old kids who attacked Jamie: Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, took the boy away from his mother at the Strand shopping centre in Bootle, Liverpool. They similarly (in comparison to the movie) splatted paint onto Jamie and attacked him with bricks, stones and a heavy iron bar until he died. Jamie’s body was eventually found 3 days later disposed on a railway that wasn’t currently in use. They were found guilty of the crime in court and were jailed for 8 years, before being given new identities to protect them. British Sky Broadcasting as well, cancelled the plans to show the movie on TV because of this case in addition to Ireland’s largest film company taking the movie out of circulation.

Moving on, BCAP (which stands for the British Code of Advertising Practice) covers all commercials and programme sponsors for radio and TV services that are Ofcom licensed. This code is imposed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) who have the power to ban and/or get ads changed if deemed unsuitable by breaking one of the BCAP rules. As of 2018, the rules cover 33 different topics with the latest addition being electronic cigarettes. One of its main guidelines titled ‘Harm and offence’ make sure that advertisements aren’t damaging or insulting to people in general. It ensures adverts conform to what is socially acceptable so virtually nobody takes offence to the commercial’s material. This ties in with scheduling section guidelines, as some adverts may cause offence to children – the 9 pm watershed or the channel used to promote an advertisement will have to be considered for certain adverts to avoid controversy. For example, an advert for charities showing children who are starving in 3rd world countries like Africa on a kid’s channel such as Disney would distress young viewers and therefore would be unsuitable for them to watch.

PEGI (Pan European Gaming Information) is responsible for giving all video games for all gaming platforms have an age rating within Europe. This is so that users are aware of the content that a game has before purchasing and helps consumers to make more appropriate decisions before purchasing a game. Age ratings for PEGI include; 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18. Content which has been given an age rating of 3 is suitable for everyone and anyone and won’t be harmful in any way. On the other end of the scale games rated 12, 16 and 18 are from July 2012 illegal to sell to people younger than the age rating in the UK. To justify the ratings, PEGI has ‘content descriptors’ so that consumers understand the reasons why a product has a certain age rating. These content descriptors include Violence, Bad Language, Online, Fear, Gambling, Sex, Drugs and Discrimination. One of the reasons as to why PEGI has been enforced is to set restrictions of certain material to younger audiences, as parents fear that children can be heavily influenced by what they’re exposed to and assume they’re more likely to engage in dangerous and illicit activities. By having these ratings, parents can make suitable decisions and having control over what they want their children to play. Their official ‘Code of Conduct’ which they have posted on their official website states that their guidelines should wherever and whenever necessary cover gaming related content which is online and computer products too.

NUJ which is also known as the National Union of Journalists is a website dedicated to helping out journalists and journalism itself. They aim to improve the salaries and the treatment which members of the group face whilst encouraging freedom within media, professionalism and ethics. The main areas of work which this union support includes photography, newspaper and magazine publishing, books, broadcasting and public relations. They promote rights for people within this union too. This includes their equality council, which they are keen to enforce to all members by having anti-discrimination policies. It covers equal pay, sexism, members of the LGBT community and their rights, age discrimination, childcare and a balance between work and life. They have an NUJ pride forum to celebrate members of the LGBT community, Women in the NUJ (WiN) website section which supports ‘International Women’s Day’ and equal pay for both men and women. In addition to a 60+ council which runs campaigns for pensions, ageism and equality. The NUJ also helps with health and safety issues so that members can prevent any dangers at work. This is carried out by campaigns against RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), bullying and stress. They also offer many guides offering information to members to keep these issues under control.

One of the ways in which NUJ has proven themselves helpful was when they supported Keri Hudson, who worked as an intern for TPG Web Publishing (who owns My Village). She had worked 6 weeks for the company in 2010 from 10 am and 6 pm managing their actual website as well as helping out other interns who weren’t being paid. She wasn’t given any money for her services, no training or even an induction even though this was promised and eventually resigned. One of the NUJ’s schemes: ‘Cashback for Interns’ took TPG to a tribunal where she won her case and was awarded £1025 for her work (the National Minimum Wage + holiday pay).

Laws and consequences

The media and the publishers which help to circulate material have a duty to prevent breaching any laws regarding how they act, collect materials and how people and communities are represented. Examples of where the rules have been broken occurred with JK Rowling’s daughter in 2011. This controversial case involved a journalist giving a letter to her daughter to put in her bag in an attempt to gain some information from the famous Harry Potter author herself. This had broken one of IPSO’s (The Independent Press Standards Organisation) Editor’s Code of Practice for children. It states children: “must not be approached or photographed at school without permission of the school authorities” and “Editors must not use the fame, notoriety or position of a parent or guardian as the sole justification for publishing details of a child’s private life”. In addition to the ‘United Nations Convention on The Rights of the Child (UNCRC)’ which is supported by UNICEF and made up of 54 different articles helping to protect minors. This would have broken article 16 – ‘A Right to Privacy’ describing how children and their families have a right to live a private life.

Joanne Rowling went to the high courts to discuss the matter with the Leveson inquiry to show her disgust of a journalist’s letter placed inside her 5-year-old daughter’s backpack and wasn’t sure of how it ended up there. She went on to explain how she feels ‘under siege’ due to the photographers and disappointed that her daughter’s school “was no longer a place of complete security from journalists’. She also went on to complain about how her phone is continually hacked by members of the press and that she had to take action as the stories were misreported and said that it invaded her privacy. The consequences of this have been that she and her family have had to leave their home from Edinburgh due to her address being leaked online in photographs to millions which she had resided at since 1997. Similar news stories regarding phone hacking and other similar scandals helped to eventually introduce new laws and legislation set out by Lord Justice Leveson as the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) wasn’t strong enough, being ignored by many journalists anyway.

Another case study which I wish to discuss as well includes the most recent Facebook data breach, where the personal data of some users were released and stolen by Cambridge Analytica – a UK political consulting company. This affected approximately 87 million Facebook users globally – around 1 million of the victims are UK residents and 70 million of those are from the US. Cambridge Analytica worked in cooperation with Donald Trump and his team during the presidential election. The firm collected data from Facebook users in the US and utilised it to create a piece of software which could tell whom a particular person would vote for and persuade users on their choice of whom to vote for. This application was known as ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ (which was taken down in 2015), where 305,000 Facebook users were affected by the application secretly extracting data from personal Facebook inboxes. Other personal data included: page likes, date of birth and where the user lives.

One of their analytics branches as well titled ‘CubeYou’ rolled out a quiz on the self-titled website ‘You Are What You Like’, working alongside Cambridge University. This was eventually replaced with an app called ‘Apply Magic Sauce’ which gathered personal data from users, with the terms being that their data was stored for academic and business purposes and they give their consent for this by completing the quiz. Unsurprisingly, Cambridge Analytica got hold of this quiz information and used it for their benefit. Cambridge University has strongly declined that they worked with Analytica, even though this wasn’t the case. People who used Facebook even admitted they were aware that Cambridge Analytica incurred security breaches by collecting people’s data since 2015 but chose not to tell users at the time. Even users who wished to delete their profiles were welcomed with a message stating ‘You may wish to download a copy of your info from Facebook’. For some users, the data included every text and phone call which they had made with detail on time, date and how long the conversation went on for. As well as contacts featured in users address books, copies of their calendars (which includes the information they have posted on the calendar), social events users have attended and the birthdays of people they know too.

With Facebook failing to regulate itself properly, Mark Zuckerberg (one of Facebook’s co-founders and CEO) went to Congress, Washington where he was asked a series of questions over 2 days relating to the scandal. He discussed that Cambridge Analytica has been blocked from using their information and is taking the blame for some of the trouble which has been caused. This included the fact that he admitted to making a ‘mistake’ by not blocking Cambridge Analytica in 2015 when they were accessing their website and began harvesting data. They denied this at the time, and so Facebook decided not to investigate any further taking “their word for it” (The Guardian, The key moments from Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress, Published Wednesday 11th April 2018).

The consequences resulting from this scandal meant that co-founder and CEO: Mark Zuckerberg has lost $11 billion of his net worth since the incident was revealed to have taken place on March 19th, 2018. It also began a social media #DeleteFacebook movement, prompting users to delete their Facebook accounts and the mobile application – this has even been supported by one of Apple’s co-founders: Steve Wozniak. Facebook additionally have decided to close down one of their data collection firms: CubeYou, after it was suspected that this branch was using similar deceitful techniques to Cambridge Analytica to gain peoples personal data. Not to mention, Facebook has also had to send a message to all its users named “Protecting Your Information”. It gives each user information on the applications which they currently use through clicking the link on this notice and states the information which the apps are currently using or have taken from the said user. As of the 1st May, Cambridge Analytica is defunct due to the vast majority of their partnerships being revoked and consumers not supporting the business, forcing them to file for administration. Investigations into their activity are still going on to this date.

The need for regulation

The media is something which we all inevitably access daily, especially in our modern technologically advanced society. There are various viewpoints, ideas and concepts illustrated across different mediums of media most of which are fine, but there can be from long term exposure harsh consequences to people who consume dangerous views or products. There is the argument that regulation oppresses creativity and freedom of speech as it does cap how people can express themselves when creating media-related content for everyone to access. The media must be regulated as there need to be rules for people to follow to ensure that companies are abiding by the law and aren’t carrying out any malicious practices in their work. At the same time, it needs to promote healthy competition between similar companies in terms of products so that they’re able to thrive. In this section, I plan to discuss controversial media products from 2 different sectors and organisations which help to deal with these matters.

To commence, my first case study covers the gaming sector and is a fairly recent controversy surrounding the major video game company: EA (otherwise known as Electronic Arts). This case is linked to one of their recent releases: Star Wars Battlefront II released the 17th November 2017. They have come under fire for making ‘Loot Boxes’ as part of the game itself; this is paid for with real money on top of the actual cost of the game. These were available to purchase in the game to unlock some of the special characters earlier on in the game (including Darth Vader) and enhance the performance of the character/s that a player has chosen. This selection is made from random, making the setup akin to gambling. Quite a few critics on Reddit have shown their disapproval to this scheme by branding Star Wars as a ‘Pay to Win’ game, as it tempts players to spend a lot of money to get the virtual items that they want to get straight away, instead of playing the game normally to eventually unlock the same items. Even though they received tons of complaints, they only held off Loot Box sales just a day before its initial release and then proceeded to charge money for the boxes anyway.

The outcomes from this unethical practice included the removal of all payments made towards Loot Boxes. This was also published on their official website in a post titled ‘How we’ve updated crates and progression’ to notify to all consumers that most of the items previously available for sale, can only be unlocked through playing the game itself. It has saved some of the content named ‘Epic Star Cards’ for the deluxe version of the game. Additionally, their sales fell short in comparison to their estimates due to this incident, only managing 7 million sales – half the amount they wanted initially. The Netherlands Gaming Authority carried out a study into games which feature loot boxes to find out 4 of the 10 games (which included Star Wars Battlefront II) had breached gambling laws. This is since any items won could be sold for money or traded which breaks their law. Belgium itself took this one step further, and the Belgian Gaming Commission declared loot boxes were ‘illegal’. Threats have been made, so that if gaming publishers don’t adapt the content within their games to abide by the current laws, then they can have a fixed penalty of 800,000 Euros to pay and a maximum of 5 years in prison.

My 2nd case covers a TV advert by skincare company Dove. This advert was removed entirely from social media sites, although the full 30-second advert broadcasted in the US. The product itself: body wash wasn’t itself controversial – it was the content they used to advertise it which got the TV commercial banned. The looped ad which was posted on Facebook by the company featured a black woman taking off her T-shirt to reveal a white woman who did the same to reveal an Asian woman underneath. They were all given the same question to answer during the advert: “If your skin were a wash label, what would it be?” CNN (Cable News Network) summarised the advertisement as ‘racially insensitive’. Even the black Nigerian woman who featured in the ad: Lola Ogunyemi published a self-written article about the advert in The Guardian saying, ‘she’s not a victim’ in the title. She stated that she was happy with the outcome of the advert but disappointed with people’s perceptions of it being racist and that Dove didn’t try and defend its advert and pulled it.

The outcome from this advert besides the short-looped clip being banned from social media were threats to refuse to buy any products Dove makes and the company which owns them: Unilever across Twitter and Facebook. Dove responded by removing their post on October 7th, 2017. They also released a public apology on Facebook saying they “missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of colour and we deeply regret the offence that it has caused”.

Examples of regulatory organisations

  • Government – covers the regulation of monopoly to ensure that healthy competition flourishes between businesses and to ensure that they don’t put prices too high. Also, the government regulates this to safeguard the interests of customers. Ways in which this is done is through price capping for private businesses for OFGEM (The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets), OFWAT (The Water Services Regulation Authority) and ORR (Office of Rail and Road).
  • OFCOM – The Office of Communications covers radio, TV, postal services, video streaming services, mobiles, landline phones and the resources they use to function. They aim to ensure that UK residents are receiving good quality communication services and aren’t subject to scams or malicious schemes. However, they carry out their regulation in a way which allows businesses to compete with one another.
  • IPSO – the Independent Press Standards Organisation regulates the vast majority of the UK’s magazines and newspapers. They promote ‘freedom of expression’ for newspapers and journalists whilst dealing with the choices they make and protecting people’s rights. They work accordingly to the Editors Code to ensure that the press sticks to the terms including discrimination, accuracy, privacy, and harassment.

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