Ofcom Discussion

(15-05-2010 08:22 )elgar1uk Wrote:  

(14-05-2010 22:49 )BigBen Wrote:  Common sense would be to scrap ofcom, as if anyone needs to make a serious complaint about issues they is nothing wrong with writing a letter direct to westminster.

Who at Westminster did you have in mind?

The cabinate minister in charge of the area you want to complain about. If you want to make a complaint about buses for example you contact the transport minister, for police the home secretary, for TV its the minister for commerce and trade.

(14-05-2010 22:44 )BigBen Wrote:  I think double standards springs to mind when talking about ofcom. They come down hard on issues the majority of people dont give two flying fucks about and at the end of the day if the babe channels offend you what are you doing in the 900 channel area and why not just switch over and not watch again. If they have conceres that under 18's could potentially watch babe channels all I have to say to that is Sky now has as part of its settings parental control locks so a pin is required for any channel or series of channels that a parent would deam as unsuitable. So ofcom have no cause for concern at all. Ofcom are only leading an attack on a babe channel because they deem it a easy target to make it looks as though they are actually doing some work for a change. Instead of (What they actually do) skimming off public funds by making deals with large coporations and networks to say they is no cause for concern with many shady activities phone companies such as vodafone get up to (Their advertisement of unlimted texts when you only get 3000 for example).

Well said! I had completely forgotten that SKY has pin lock options for certain channels, which could easily be used for the 900 channels. Isn't THIS enough to appease Offcom????

(10-05-2010 20:00 )Digital Dave Wrote:  It is an absolute fucking joke that the channels think it's a good idea to grass each other up, yet Chilly is right, the overwhelming majority of complaints come from the channel operators themselves, or from stooges, as in the case of Paradiso.

I think to deter such stupidity, any channel found to be making a vexatious/malicious complaint against a rival should have their licence immediately revoked.

What would be left would be one genuine complaint every year or two, which would leave Ofcom without a leg to stand on when trying to harass these channels. The viewers would gain and the channels' future would be more secure, yet the masterminds who run some of the channels are too dumb to see it.

Well its the pay to view channels that do it becuase the babe channels have huge potential to put their channels out of buiness. If the babe channels are allowed (as they should be) to show riskier content, then why would anyone pay to view the pay to view channels? So while their is a body to tell tales to they will use these underhand tactics. Untill the government has the balls to say "ofcom is a waste of public funds lets do the sensible thing and axe it".

Apologies if this theory's already been discussed, but as well as parental control option on my SKY & FV boxes, why can't they encrypt all the adult channels; the encrypted PPV/SUBs channels show soft porn, way beyond what the callgirls do, so the girls could do the same stuff as on TVX/RedHot etc.
Access to the free channels by pin number as it is now; by that I mean to watch callgirl 18cert stuff before 10:00pm or after 5:30am you will find it encrypted; case in point, tune in to SKY945 between 5;30am-6:00am, you will not be able to watch it until you enter your pin number as EPG 18cert classification extends to 6:00am, so the machinery is in place to do it, should only need a few tweeks to set it up.

Just noticed on EPG,SKY911/914, EliteNights is 18cert from 9:00pm so should be encrypted, but oddly SKY965 EliteNights is 15cert 9:00pm-11:00pm.

I think that eventually the restrictions on adult material available via the media will be relaxed, relaxation has been a very slow, drawn out process,over a long period & today you can watch these shows & see boundaries being very slowly widened as to what you can get away with before OFCOM comes knocking on your door.
Everybody on this forum has or has access to a computer, tool that is probably becoming as commonplace as TV,the point being that on a PC you can watch almost anything from the callgirl shows up to extreme hardcore porn,much of it free, yet there seems to be no control over what you can watch, although probably have the parental control option.
That being so the restrictions on TV are laughable,saying that you can watch soft porn, but only if you pay for it & only between 10:00pm-5:30am,but if you've got a PC watch free hardcore with no restriction; as a PC is an entertainment medium rather than a work tool for most people & improvement in monitors a lot of people use their PC instead of TV; the issue has been discussed on this thread that OFCOM is a bunch of retard busybodies,implementing policies that have no logic or consistency.
Case in point,if you have TVX/RedHot subs you can watch the soft porn stuff on TV, but you can watch the same stuff on their websites uncensored,included in subscription.

(18-05-2010 21:51 )mrmann Wrote:  

(14-05-2010 22:44 )BigBen Wrote:  I think double standards springs to mind when talking about ofcom. They come down hard on issues the majority of people dont give two flying fucks about and at the end of the day if the babe channels offend you what are you doing in the 900 channel area and why not just switch over and not watch again. If they have conceres that under 18's could potentially watch babe channels all I have to say to that is Sky now has as part of its settings parental control locks so a pin is required for any channel or series of channels that a parent would deam as unsuitable. So ofcom have no cause for concern at all. Ofcom are only leading an attack on a babe channel because they deem it a easy target to make it looks as though they are actually doing some work for a change. Instead of (What they actually do) skimming off public funds by making deals with large coporations and networks to say they is no cause for concern with many shady activities phone companies such as vodafone get up to (Their advertisement of unlimted texts when you only get 3000 for example).

Well said! I had completely forgotten that SKY has pin lock options for certain channels, which could easily be used for the 900 channels. Isn't THIS enough to appease Offcom????

It isn't enough because it's only an excuse by Ofcon to keep full R18 off the TV. They don't want it at all so have come up with this ridiculous reason. I don't think anybody really believes that it's about child protection.

(19-05-2010 02:22 )RRROGER Wrote:  I think that eventually the restrictions on adult material available via the media will be relaxed, relaxation has been a very slow, drawn out process,over a long period & today you can watch these shows & see boundaries being very slowly widened as to what you can get away with before OFCOM comes knocking on your door.
Everybody on this forum has or has access to a computer, tool that is probably becoming as commonplace as TV,the point being that on a PC you can watch almost anything from the callgirl shows up to extreme hardcore porn,much of it free, yet there seems to be no control over what you can watch, although probably have the parental control option.
That being so the restrictions on TV are laughable,saying that you can watch soft porn, but only if you pay for it & only between 10:00pm-5:30am,but if you've got a PC watch free hardcore with no restriction; as a PC is an entertainment medium rather than a work tool for most people & improvement in monitors a lot of people use their PC instead of TV; the issue has been discussed on this thread that OFCOM is a bunch of retard busybodies,implementing policies that have no logic or consistency.
Case in point,if you have TVX/RedHot subs you can watch the soft porn stuff on TV, but you can watch the same stuff on their websites uncensored,included in subscription.

Quite simply because the internet is a relatively new phenomenon and ways of policing it haven't really been worked out yet.

Ofcom are detailed to regulate tv. They're not going to allow stuff on tv on the basis that people can see stronger stuff on their pc's. It just doesn't work like that.

(19-05-2010 19:08 )MARCCE Wrote:  

(19-05-2010 02:22 )RRROGER Wrote:  I think that eventually the restrictions on adult material available via the media will be relaxed, relaxation has been a very slow, drawn out process,over a long period & today you can watch these shows & see boundaries being very slowly widened as to what you can get away with before OFCOM comes knocking on your door.
Everybody on this forum has or has access to a computer, tool that is probably becoming as commonplace as TV,the point being that on a PC you can watch almost anything from the callgirl shows up to extreme hardcore porn,much of it free, yet there seems to be no control over what you can watch, although probably have the parental control option.
That being so the restrictions on TV are laughable,saying that you can watch soft porn, but only if you pay for it & only between 10:00pm-5:30am,but if you've got a PC watch free hardcore with no restriction; as a PC is an entertainment medium rather than a work tool for most people & improvement in monitors a lot of people use their PC instead of TV; the issue has been discussed on this thread that OFCOM is a bunch of retard busybodies,implementing policies that have no logic or consistency.
Case in point,if you have TVX/RedHot subs you can watch the soft porn stuff on TV, but you can watch the same stuff on their websites uncensored,included in subscription.

Quite simply because the internet is a relatively new phenomenon and ways of policing it haven't really been worked out yet.

Ofcom are detailed to regulate tv. They're not going to allow stuff on tv on the basis that people can see stronger stuff on their pc's. It just doesn't work like that.

It’s actually because the internet is not allowed to be legally regulated in free west countries. There have been suggestions in the UN that governments would like to regulate it but they cannot get a consensus. I would oppose any government regulating the internet because they would actively abuse their responsibilities (Never trust a politician or a policeperson) and use the opportunity to censor anything that was damming to the government. Ofcom actually have no legal mandate to regulate TV. They simply have guidelines, if their fines & impositions were actually challenged by the channels in court ofcom wouldnt have a leg to stand on.

(19-05-2010 19:34 )BigBen Wrote:  It’s actually because the internet is not allowed to be legally regulated in free west countries. There have been suggestions in the UN that governments would like to regulate it but they cannot get a consensus. I would oppose any government regulating the internet because they would actively abuse their responsibilities (Never trust a politician or a policeperson) and use the opportunity to censor anything that was damming to the government. Ofcom actually have no legal mandate to regulate TV. They simply have guidelines, if their fines & impositions were actually challenged by the channels in court ofcom wouldnt have a leg to stand on.

The present situation where hardcore porn is relatively easy to access for averagely sexy 10 year olds won't be allowed to continue.

As I said, it's a new world and ideas and ways of tackling obvious problems are still in their infancy.

Radio, tv and even the "free" press are regulated to different degrees without the country having become a dictatorship. Certain parts of the internet will follow suit.

And whilst everyone keeps saying Ofcom don't have a leg to stand on, there's a marked reluctance from any tv channel to actually test that theory, suggesting that Ofcom's standing leg may be slightly more sturdy than many people imagine.

(19-05-2010 20:13 )MARCCE Wrote:  

(19-05-2010 19:34 )BigBen Wrote:  It’s actually because the internet is not allowed to be legally regulated in free west countries. There have been suggestions in the UN that governments would like to regulate it but they cannot get a consensus. I would oppose any government regulating the internet because they would actively abuse their responsibilities (Never trust a politician or a policeperson) and use the opportunity to censor anything that was damming to the government. Ofcom actually have no legal mandate to regulate TV. They simply have guidelines, if their fines & impositions were actually challenged by the channels in court ofcom wouldnt have a leg to stand on.

The present situation where hardcore porn is relatively easy to access for averagely sexy 10 year olds won't be allowed to continue.

As I said, it's a new world and ideas and ways of tackling obvious problems are still in their infancy.

Radio, tv and even the "free" press are regulated to different degrees without the country having become a dictatorship. Certain parts of the internet will follow suit.

And whilst everyone keeps saying Ofcom don't have a leg to stand on, there's a marked reluctance from any tv channel to actually test that theory, suggesting that Ofcom's standing leg may be slightly more sturdy than many people imagine.

All Windows and Macs come with parental control software, so the argument that 10 year olds have free & easy access to hardcore pornography is rather a redundant and scare mongering one. Yes there are unsavoury elements to the internet and yes occasionally an under 18 year old will find a way to view some porn online. Yet this doesn’t justify allowing governments to interfere in the content of the internet. The internet is supposed to be a free medium. Look at what happened to the internet in countries where the government has control of censorship (Packistan recently 'banned' facebook there, China has been supressing news stories about attrocities for some time now). As well which person can be trusted to decide what is sutible and what is not sutible, what is to be censored what is to be not censored? The creators of the internet would be appalled at the suggestion a free western government was actively censoring the internet and controlling its content. All 18+ sites come with advisory warnings, allot have secure pass restriction and police actively monitor the activities of shady websites. This is more than enough restriction to allow the internet to continue been a free medium yet secure and safe. Also TV channels at present dont bother with taking ofcom to court because court fees would exceed the fine. At the present time it is easier to pay a fine than fight a court case. However, if ofcom were to press for the closing down of channels then I'm sure that would force the channels hand in taking ofcom to court. At the present time ofcoms fines are flimsy and non threating to the longevity of the channels running.