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Cape Town – Last week’s gazetted draft online regulation policy by the Film and Publication Board (FPB) that could potentially curtail online freedom of expression has been criticised for its lack of engagement by the industry’s main body.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau South Africa (IAB) said it had seen an earlier unreleased draft of the policy document and had written to the FPB to raise its concerns about the process and proposed regulations, requesting an opportunity to meet with the FPB to make formal submissions.
“The FPB has yet to acknowledge or respond to several approaches made by the IAB,” said the body, which represents over 100 online publishers in SA.
This comes as the IAB announced it had entered into discussions with the South African Press Council to explore the viability of a cross-platform news media code of ethics and voluntary editorial content regulatory system to apply to news content across both print and online publications.
There were concerns that the two systems might overlap.
Read: SA’s online media seeks new code of conduct
In terms of the FPB’s policy, the main concern for the IAB was that the regulation would involve a cumbersome system that would curtail freedom of speech, according to IAB’s head of publishers Timothy Spira.
Listen to the full interview:
“We don’t want the FPB saying from an editorial stand point what can and can’t be published on a news website,” Spira told Fin24. “That’s when issues like press freedom… and freedom of expression come into it. It is important for our democracy that … institutions like the free press and freedom of expression are not undermined.”
Fin24 contacted the FPB, who said it would be “embarking on a process to engage relevant industry stakeholders as part of the process to get their inputs on the draft Online Regulation Policy”.
“A communication will be sent to all stakeholders in due course inviting them to make representation to the FPB on the policy,” FPB communications manager Janine Raftopoulos said via email.
Policy too broad
Spira, who is the GM of enca.co.za, told Fin24 that the IAB had concerns about certain broad and vague descriptions within the draft regulation.
“We are a little concerned that the policy that they have gazetted goes beyond the mandate of what they’re currently doing outside the online space,” he said. “It’s important for us to be a part of the discussion.”
He explained that the draft policy refers to a “policy on online distribution of digital films, games, and certain publications” and said that clarification was needed about what exactly the “certain publications” were.
Prohibitive for online publications
For online publications, it would mean applying for approval before publishing a breaking news video.
“If you have to go through a process of pre-classification of every piece of video… that goes up on your website, then it could prejudice your ability to cover the news in a timely fashion,” he said. “Obviously, timeliness in a news environment is everything.”
He said that publications would have to carry the cost for such a process, which would impact on loss-making online publications and small online publications that were entering the market. “You don’t want to be putting barriers in the way of these people from having a viable business,” he said.
“We’re concerned that the kinds of costs alluded to in this policy could be prohibitive, particularly for a lot of smaller and larger publishers.”
Social media could be affected
Spira explained that if the board took the literal view, it would mean that individuals would have to apply to the FPB before they uploaded any video material, such as a family holiday, onto YouTube or Facebook.
“We’re just not sure that certain areas like social media and the kind of democratised publishing environment that we have today, where effectively everybody is a potential publisher [who have tools to distribute content].”
He said that it would not be a sustainable model and would not achieve their objectives in its current form.
Spira hoped that engagement would allow for more clarity and allow the IAB to assist in ensuring the policy is more effective as well as more clearly delineated.
Why FPB embarked on new policy
The policy was developed in pursuant of section 4A of the Films and Publications Act, 61 of 1996, as amended.
“The current legislation is not platform specific, and the FPB's compliance and classification activities have over the years focused more on physical platforms and less on the online space, resulting in children being exposed to unclassified content accessed through the internet and other mobile platforms,” the FPB said on its website.
“Media convergence has fundamentally transformed the way media content is distributed and consumed. The draft online regulation policy is meant to address such challenges.
“The FPB will be embarking on national public consultation road shows, which will begin in April 2015 and will allow members of the public to give inputs on the policy.
“The policy will be published in the Government Gazette on 04 March 2015. Any person who wishes to submit representations or comments is invited to do so within 90 days from the date of publication, by no later than 16h00. Submissions should be emailed to policy.submissions@fpb.org.za or hand delivered to the FPB head office at ECO Glade 2, 420 Witch Hazel Street, ECO Park, Centurion, 0169 and marked for attention Ms Tholoana Ncheke.”
Read the full draft policy:
Draft Online Regulation Policy
* Fin24 is part of 24.com which is an IAB member.
