Home > Research and Market Data > Telecoms research > Reports and Research > Bryon Review

Ofcom’s Response to the Byron Review

Foreword

The past decade has seen significant changes in the communications and broadcasting landscape. Children and young people are at the forefront of these changes: as our research shows, they are some of the heaviest users of new media, from text messaging to MP3 players, games consoles and the internet. The internet in particular offers rich opportunities for them to learn, to get help with their education and to enrich their communications with family and friends, amongst others. But the internet also presents challenges, particularly to their safety and wellbeing, arising from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material.

So we welcome the Byron Review and the opportunity it affords for a timely and balanced discussion of the issues. We believe the Review will inform and stimulate an evidence-based debate with industry, government and consumers about the possible range of activities to help address these real concerns.

In particular, we welcome the opportunity to begin the discussion about how best to secure consumer protection in the online age in the online age. At a time of sweeping change in content delivery, and in the type of content that is available, the overall goals of content regulation persist. These are to ensure that people have the information and skills they need to take responsibility for their media choices. In linear broadcasting, the schedule and the watershed are powerful and well understood tools for signalling the characteristics of content to audiences. Our aim must now be to help inform consumers for the online world.

Although the goals are the same, the broadcast model of content regulation is not appropriate for potentially harmful online content. Rather, a new approach to content regulation is required: one which is built on a model of shared responsibility, which gives people the tools they need to take personal responsibility and which supports effective industry self-regulation. The growing importance of online media literacy derives from this: media-literate parents and children, equipped to take on this personal responsibility, provide a significant means of protection.

Ofcom’s research, analysis and experience lead us to believe at this stage that this approach is the likeliest to be successful, and to build confidence for children, young people, their parents, and wider society.

We look forward to the outcomes of the review, and to working with all sectors of industry and consumer groups to achieve these goals.

David Currie

Ed Richards

Introduction

Ofcom is pleased to submit its response to the call for evidence issued by the Byron Review team on October 9 th 2007. We welcome in particular the opportunity to have a balanced, evidence-led discussion about:

the benefits of the internet;
the potential or actual risks to children’s safety and wellbeing arising from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet; and
the effectiveness and adequacy of existing measures to help prevent children from being exposed to such material and to help parents understand and manage the risks of access to inappropriate content.

The key questions for the review are:

What are the benefits and opportunities that new technologies offer for children, young people, their families, society and the economy?
What are the potential or actual risks to children’s safety and wellbeing of going online and playing video games and how do children, young people and parents feel about those risks?
To what extent do children, young people and parents understand and manage those risks and how can they be supported to do so?
What, if anything, could be changed in order to help children, young people and parents manage the potential or actual risks of going online or playing video games, and what are the pros and cons of different approaches?

Our submission focuses primarily on children’s home PC/laptop internet experience, although, where appropriate, we also make reference to their mobile phone internet use and/or their online gaming experience.

Section 3 of the Communications Act 2003 (“the Act”) sets out Ofcom’s principal duties in carrying out its functions are to further the interests of citizens in relation to communication matters and to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition. While Ofcom’s statutory duties as a content regulator are exclusively directed to TV and Radio broadcasting we also have legal responsibilities in respect of internet connectivity. We also have a statutory duty to promote media literacy (Section 11 of the Act) – a role in encouraging consumers to make the most of services on the internet, and to learn how to manage the risks to which they are exposed when online. We therefore have an interest in the protection of consumers from harm when they use the internet.

In preparing our submission we considered the following areas, each of which is provided as an annex to this document:

How does the internet work? (Annex 1)

Provides an overview of the internet value chain, the different types of content and services available on the internet, the economics of the internet and the key players.

Current tools and approaches to regulating the internet (Annex 2)

Outlines the current regulatory thinking, the legal and regulatory structures in the UK , and the initiatives that are already under way at different points in the online content value chain.

TV Content regulation and child protection: policy, practice and user tools (Annex 3)

Summarises the current legal and regulatory structures for TV and points to the lessons that can be learned from TV content regulation; provides an overview of the Audio Visual Media Services Directive (AVMS) .

Online child protection - the international perspective (Annex 4)

Reviews approaches adopted in five other countries: France , Germany , Australia , the US and South Korea . We also take a brief look at the approaches taken in China and Saudi Arabia .

The research evidence base: the views of children, young people and parents (Annex 5)

Here we summarise the findings from the ‘Children, Young People and Online Content’ research that was commissioned to provide us with up-to-date feedback on this topic from parents, children and young people. We also refer to other Ofcom research, as well as to other publicly available research, as appropriate.

Harm and offence in media content: updating the 2006 review (Annex 6)

Ofcom commissioned Sonia Livingstone and Andrea Millwood Hargrave to update the literature review on Harm and Offence in Media Content, first published in 2006. The updated literature review focuses on TV, games, the internet and mobiles.

We have structured our submission as follows:

Chapter 2 is an executive summary of chapters 3-6.

Chapter 3 looks at the benefits and opportunities that the internet offers for children, young people, their families, society and the economy.

Chapter 4 addresses the views of parents, children and young people about children’s and young people’s use of the internet and the potential or actual risks to children’s safety and wellbeing in going online.

Chapter 5 summarises the conclusions of a review of the literature on the risks of harm to children from exposure to inappropriate content.

Finally, Chapter 6 considers what could be changed in order to help children, young people and parents manage the potential or actual risks of going online, as well as the pros and cons of different approaches. It is in this context that we recommend options for the Byron Review team’s further consideration.

This body of current evidence and analysis has informed the recommendations we have made; however, the fast pace of development in the online environment means that we must remain open to new evidence and to alternative ways to address the potential risks we have identified.

The full document is available below