Brussels considers ban on raunchy TV images

EU may act against stereotypes that do not respect human dignity

Ian Black in Brussels
Wednesday June 25, 2003
The Guardian

Sexist or raunchy images on television or in advertising could be banned across the European Union under a directive being considered in Brussels.
Anna Diamantopoulou, the Greek commissioner for social affairs, has ordered an internal study of gender questions outside the workplace, it was confirmed last night.

But officials said discussions were still in their early stages, with different commission departments being asked for their views, and some already strongly opposed. "This is a trial balloon," insisted one well-placed source. "No decision has yet been taken." Such a directive could have implications for Europe's media, advertising and insurance industries, and could stop TV programmes that stereotyped women - or men - and ban advertising that did not "respect human dignity".

It might also force insurance companies to stop using gender as the basis for calculating premiums or pension annuity rates. Strict EU laws, enforceable in all member states, already apply to sex discrimination in the workplace, but the commission's remit was extended in the treaty of Amsterdam in 1997.
Pressure groups like the European Women's Lobby are demanding a directive that would deal with sexual stereo typing on the analogy of legislation outlawing incitement to racial hatred. "We want action by the EU in areas other than employment," said EWL policy coordinator Ccile Greboval. "We need an instrument to combat sexual stereotyping, but it's a hard battle inside the commission." Draft papers on the issue say that while freedom of expression must be respected, sex discrimination and affronts to human dignity should be banned from media and advertising.

"The purpose is to avoid throughout all forms of mass media all stereotypical portrayals of women and men, as well as any projection of unacceptable images affecting human dignity and decency in advertisements," an internal commission document says. Future legislation could affect TV shows and advertisements which portray women or men as sex objects. If Ms Diamantopoulou goes ahead with a formal proposal it will have to be adopted by the whole 20-member body before being debated and approved by the European parliament as well as member states. Social policy is a notoriously slow-moving area in Brussels because of national sensitivities and powerful business interests.

Heavy lobbying has already been reported over this issue, with insurance companies keen to ensure that gender and life expectancy differences could continue to be factored into health and life cover premiums. "We will want to look at the outcome," a British government spokesman said. "We would want to make sure that whatever comes out does not undermine competitiveness or the single market." Commission sources pointed out that rules banning sex discrimination did not outlaw all distinctions between the sexes: for instance, there was no objection to single-sex schools. "Differences between the sexes in areas such as insurance are based on actuarial statistics and are nothing to do with sex discrimination in the accepted sense," one source said.

"If a different risk level between men and women is established, for whatever reason, that obviously has nothing to do with sex discrimination and it would be absurd to try to impose identical standards." The European Advertising Standards Alliance said last night that all members - including Britain's Advertising Standards Authority - had their own "own strong and applied provisions on the portrayal of women". Oliver Gray, its director, told the Guardian: "This issue, although sensitive, causes very few complaints. According to 2002 statistics from the EASA it represented only 6.4% of total complaints in Europe. Industry is actively exercising responsibility in this area." An existing commission directive called "television without frontiers" already lays down guidelines on consumer protection, right to reply and advertising content. Vivian Reding, the Luxembourg commissioner for education and culture, has made clear she opposes anything other than self-regulation for TV programmes - suggesting her Greek colleague will face an uphill struggle.

The Guardian UK

Sponsoring software- Snitch

Snitch is a drive cleaner tool created to help cleanup hard discs of offensive images, movies, internet history and other illicit files. Snitch can perform a hard drive picture search, identifying files that contain nudity, and then perform tasks such as deleting history, as well as other porn scan operations in the process of cleaning hard drives. Other disk cleaner tools do not offer all the functions of internet history cleaner and general system cleaner , and they therefore cannot clean disks and leave your computer with a completely clean drive.

Snitch uses 'intelligent', adaptive algorithms to search hard drive space and clean your computer of adult games, free adult movies and various other adult entertainment files. Skin color analysis along with other techniques make Snitch the porn scanner that is ideally suited to remove adult content.

Snitch is a software tool that is designed to cleanup disk drives and to cleanup computer storage devices of adult content. Snitch has deletion algorithms capable of deleting files, deleting internet history, deleting adult pornography and leaving you with a clean hard disk. This prevents the necessity of erasing the hard drive completely and reinstalling an operating system. Therefore a clean computer can be achieved without a full re-install. In this way Snitch performs the functions of porn eraser, hard drive cleaner, internet cleaner, and a general PC cleaner. Clean up your hard drives with Snitch software.

Snitch provides a free demo for users to test the software for themselves. This free porn remover demo allows users to try out Snitch before paying, to see if it performs as they expect it to.