BBFC FILM TV 2020-22 CASES

 I've been having a trawl through some of my larger posts... There's still a lot below, but this makes it easier to find nuggets on specific industry case studies. Still TBC with some bullets...

I started with 

2021 OVERVIEW compilation of examples

last updated Jan 2022....

BBFC PUBLIC PANEL ZERO TOLERANCE OF N-WORD, NOW MIN 12 RATING UNLESS EDUCATIONAL

Guardian reports on BBFC's response to its latest public attitudes research.

DISNEY+ HONG KONG LAUNCH CUTS SIMPSONS CHINA EPISODE

Guardian. 'In the cartoon there is a sign in [Tianamen] square that reads “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened”, a satirical nod to China’s campaign to purge memories of what happened.'

GULF STATES BAN DISNEY'S MCU ETERNAL OVER GAY KISS

See Guardian.

ENGLISH COUNCIL URGES PARENTS TO BAN SQUID GAMES AFTER COPYCAT OUTBREAK

If it was film they'd have power to ban it... Guardian

NETFLIX DAVE CHAPELLE TRANSPHOBIA ROW

It looks likely that Netflix will be overtaken in subscriber numbers by one or more of Disney+ and Amazon - its long-term prospects are a little shaky. This row won't help, with cancellations and boycott over its support for Chappelle's transphobic comments in his new Netflix special. Guardian.

PANDEMIC FUELLED PIRACY BOOM

Lockdown has brought many more into using piracy as a main part of their film/TV (not least sport) viewing. The spread of exclusive content from Netflix, Amazon Prime to a growing number (Disney+, Peacock...) has meant facing multiple subscriptions - too many to pay for for many viewers who've instead switched to piracy, and maybe pay for one music service (Spotify or Apple Music mainly).

The emerging use of simultaneous streaming and cinema release has also made it easier for pirates to access high quality movie files. Guardian.

OFCOM 2021 ATTITUDE SURVEY: SWEARING OK, RACISM/TRANSPHOBIA NOT...UNLESS OLDER

Multiple useful takeaways from this, but the split over banning repeats of film/TV with aspects like blackface splits the younger (ban it!) and older (it simply reflects attitudes at that time).

Useful point too linked to Pogues case study, words like "faggot" 'were highly offensive and required a very strong editorial justification if they were to be included in a programme' Guardian.

SWEARING LOSING SHOCK VALUE - SCHITT'S CREEK etc

Guardian: 'Ultimately, despite a backlash to certain series, it seems that we’re finding “bad words” on television less gasp-inducing in general, according to Ofcom, and the number of people who bother to make official complaints about it appears to be on the decline as well. The regulator says just three viewers complained about the title The End of the F***ing World when it was broadcast, and 12 viewers when the trailer aired pre-watershed. These complaints “were assessed and not pursued”, it says. The last big fine imposed on a broadcaster for swearing was back in 2008 for MTV, which had to cough up £255,000 for “repeatedly airing swearing and offensive language” on its pre-watershed shows, including a trailer for the show Totally Jodie Marsh, in which the words “some fucking wanker from a modelling agency” were uttered.'

BBFC CONFIRM LONG-TERM NETFLIX ARRANGEMENT

They've deemed their self-rating trial a success. BBC

GOVERNMENT TRY TO FIX OFCOM APPOINTMENT PROCESS TO INSTALL PAUL DACRE - BUT STRUGGLE TO FIND PROFESSIONALS WILLING TO RISK DAMAGING THEIR REPUTATION

This is the type of behaviour that made Trump's administration so notorious a questioned for its democratic legitimacy. Dacre was the long-term Mail editor well known for his hostility towards the BBC and C4. OfCom is supposed to be the neutral media regulator - this shows the power of making appointments (see also the multiple Conservatives now running the BBC). Guardian

OFCOM FOLLOW UP CGTN BAN WITH £200K FINE!

Having withdrawn their license because the company with that license wasn't directly controlling the editorial decisions - ultimately the Chinese government was - a sizeable fine has been added! (Aug 2021; license withdrawal Feb 2021)

'The regulator revoked CGTN's licence in February after an Ofcom investigation found the international English-language satellite news channel was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which is not permitted under UK broadcasting law' BBC

BBFC JUSTIFY 15 FOR THE SUICIDE SQUAD

Quite a familiar rationale ... it's fantasy style, violence isn't sustained... Indie

BBFC MOCKS IT'S OWN 80s VIDEO NASTIES PAST, SPITTING SURVEY STATS TO JUSTIFY ITSELF AS HORROR FILM "CENSOR" REFLECTS ON THE MARY WHITEHOUSE/MAIL MORAL PANIC

Lots of useful material in this Guardian feature. Austin is BBFC chief executive....

'Ask Austin how he feels about the 80s BBFC and you might think he was talking about a late, disgraced elderly relative. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 gave the BBFC control over the films people watched at home; in the same year, the board dropped the word “censors” from its title. But, to Austin, a more profound change came in 1999. That was when the board switched from airing examiners’ hang-ups to transparent guidelines drawn from public consultation. Twenty-two years later, 10,000 members of the British public are still asked annually to gauge the level of sex and violence that should be viewable by, say, a typical 12-year-old. “I don’t just make up the standards in Soho Square,” Austin says. “Our standards are given to us by the public.”

Yet not everyone is at peace with the BBFC. In 2016, the film-maker Charlie Shackleton pushed back. His objections included its financial model: not profit-making, but reliant on distributors having no choice but to submit their films for certification – and to pay the BBFC to do so, for each minute of screen time. His provocative response was Paint Drying, a 10-hour study of a freshly painted wall. The classification fee was crowdfunded, the issue publicised. (The film got a U.) Shackleton remains a sceptic. “It suits the BBFC to highlight video nasties. They acknowledge the absurdity of their past and tell everyone they’re different now. Then they release another survey to justify their existence.”

(“And 88% of parents found it useful when Netflix started using BBFC classification,” Austin says.) But the relationship is unusual. Rather than submit content to examiners, the company uses an algorithm developed with the board. The bill is substantially cheaper.

Austin wants to work with other big streamers. But the real prize is the internet. If video nasties were an early freakout at rising individualism, online life is the world after the flood. Here, more than movies, is where the questions of the 80s endure. When does “I don’t want to look at this” attract the addendum “and no one else should” or “because they might copy it”? “That was video nasties in a nutshell,” Bailey-Bond says. “It came from people feeling everyone was morally shady, that we’re only ever one film from garotting someone with a shoelace.”

OFCOM COMPLAINTS RISE 4-FOLD, ALL TOP 10 ITV, 3 PIERS MORGAN, 2 BLM

BBC. A 410% increase. I'd have to think that's reflective of the number of people under lockdown plus many watching shows like GMB they normally wouldn't. 

MORE AUTHORITARIANISM: BORIS ALLY TRIED TO BLOCK BBC APPOINTMENT

Guardian. The advisor who came up with the media strategy on the race report (Britain isn't racist, yay! in summary) and worked on the right-wing TV news station GB News, warned the BBC not to appoint someone from the HuffPost. Which Boris was battling with after he okayed a minister using Twitter to bring thtreat to a journalist. He texted: 'the government’s “fragile trust in the BBC will be shattered” if she went ahead'.

Labour subsequently demanded the resignation or sacking of Gibb, former Communications Director for Theresa May as PM (Guardian). Alistair Campbell, Blair's media pitbull, had a colourful phrase to describe the Tory/Johnson attempts to shape and control the media, culling critical voices: "Putinism with posh accents". Gibb sits on the BBC Board; 'According to the corporation’s website, one of Gibb’s responsibilities as a non-executive director on the BBC board involves “upholding and protecting the independence of the BBC”.'

OFCOM SAY GB NEWS OK...BUT BLAST JOHN LENNON PEACE VIDEO

BBC: It seems there's no going back from the radical reinterpretation of broadcast news balance/accuracy requirements. Much like IPSO + the PCC before it, opinion segments are getting extra leeway, while the inclusion of some/any counterviews, regardless of how they're presented or undermined, seems now to mean right-wing Trumpian/Fox-style 'news' shows are okay.

The Lennon case is about the use of 1 of 2 videos for Happy Xmas (War is Over) which features short clips of real war footage.

As with Indie social realist films getting hammered with high BBFC age ratings, it seems that reality/realism is not to be encouraged!!!

FLASH GORDON BBFC'S BIGGEST 2020 CONTROVERSY! KARATE KID RATING CHOPPED

A new DVD edition was uprated for its use of stereotypes, eventually leading to ... 26 complaints. Pinocchio was #2! FilmStories.

SkyNews is one of many other sites who detail the range of upratings like Star Wars and LotR, but also Karate Kid dropping down to 12.

EU TO IMPOSE QUOTA ON BRITISH FILM/TV?

And so the great Brexit triumph continues... The UK music industry faces crisis as touring in the EU is made impossible (British drivers are only allowed to take tour vans to 3 venues then must return to the UK, with carnets, tax forms, required now too for all equipment).

The booming UK film/TV industry now faces a huge hit too. The EU are likely to impose a quota on UK productions to protect domestic European production and culture, echoing the quotas in place to protect against American dominance, or cultural imperialism. In France, for example, this applies across radio, film and TV.

One of several Guardian reports notes:

Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens): 

Under the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, a majority of airtime must be given to such European content on terrestrial television and it must make up at least 30% of the number of titles on video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

UK GOV TO PRIVATISE C4?

Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens): Guardian

GB NEWS LAUNCHES EVEN AS MURDOCH HESITATES - IS BRITAIN GETTING ITS OWN FOX NEWS?

In short - yes ... and no. Murdoch's US Fox News is a commercial juggernaut, attracting huge advertising revenues for its comically, demonically far-right proselytizing; this venture, even with a Trump-like UK Prime Minister, is unlikely to gain either the commercial of cultural importance. But it seems a large degree of newspaper style bias will be okayed by OfCom. See Guardian analysis:

Contrary to popular belief, there is no legal requirement for British broadcasters to give equal time to both sides of a political debate. Instead, GB News will simply have to ensure its broadcasts meet Ofcom’s standards of due impartiality. This would enable a host to express a strong opinion on a culture war topic as long as viewers are later exposed to alternative viewpoints.

Stop Funding Hate, the Twitter-centric campaign group that puts pressure on rightwing news outlets by targeting their advertisers, has already launched a campaign against the channel. “GB News may now be trying to shake off the Fox News label – but if to be ‘woke’ is to be anti-racist, then by branding themselves an ‘anti-woke’ TV channel, they seem to be making their intentions quite clear,” it said.

BBFC 2021 SWEARING FINDINGS: NO MORE AT 12 SAY PARENTS - WHILE THEY SWEAR MORE THEMSELVES!

Guardian. 'The report coincides with the BBFC’s first guide to what terms parents can expect to hear in differently classified TV shows and films. It says that for a U-rated film such as Monsters Inc, “look at the big jerk” will be as strong as it gets.

In Back to the Future, a PG film, Marty McFly exclaims “holy shit!” when armed terrorists approach in a van, but the word is not used again.

Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the 12/12A-rated examples: “Freddie fucking Mercury,” says Mercury in a scene in which he reveals to his bandmates that he has Aids. “You’re a legend,” says the drummer Roger Taylor. “You’re bloody right I am,” Mercury replies. The BBFC says viewers would have been expecting “sex, drugs and strong language”.

The report also touches on acronyms and concludes that the meaning of an example such as WTF is rarely lost on viewers, whatever age. “Therefore, the BBFC will classify acronyms as if they are a use of strong language in full.”'

CHINA: JOHN CENA APOLOGIZES TO PREVENT MOVIE FLOPPING; CENSORING TIANAMEN SQUARE SEARCH RESULTS OUTSIDE CHINA TOO

Google bowed to pressure from its staff and risk to its image (though does anyone still think their corporate motto 'don't be evil" is anything but a sick joke by now?) by pulling out of China in 2010 rather than agreeing to censor it's results. Murdoch pulped (last British Governor of Hong Kong) Chris Patten's autobiography and wrote off the £1m advance, and dumped the BBC from his Asian satellite TV network Star to protect his access to China. NBCUniversal made wrestler/actor John Cena apologize for correctly referring to Taiwan as a country - like Tibet and Hong Kong, China insists it isn't, it's simply part of China (and is increasingly open about threatening military invasion to enforce this). Do a 'china' word search in this post to read more.

Into this picture of craven Western media bowing to China's notorious censorship demands stumbles Microsoft. Their search engine is compliant with the great firewall of China, the extraordinary operation to block critical (what Gramsci calls counter-hegemonic) content - like any reference to Tianamen Square. They've been caught out applying this censorship in the West now too (they blamed this on "human error"). But this isn't an entirely new development...

'In 2014, the Guardian reported that Bing was censoring results for Chinese-language users in the US for many of the same terms that Bing censors inside China, such as Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong.

In 2009, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about receiving seemingly censored results on Bing when he searched for topics such as the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong using simplified Chinese language characters.' (Guardian)

It's worth emphasizing that the basic Western democracy v Chinese dictatorship binary isn't so clearcut. Trump made clear he admired several dictators and attempted to trample on US democracy. Boris Johnson is doing the same in the UK, while Poland and Hungary barely qualify as democracies any more. Many western governments were caught out secretly spying on their citizens with the Wikileaks publication of Chelsea Manning's leaks and the Guardian/New York Times publication of Alex Snowdon's leaks. The British government sent in police to literally destroy the computers Guardian journalists were working on. Democracy?!?! (read more)

Western 'democracies' secretly have their own operations - Andrew Keen covers this in his books reflecting on web 3.0, describing how Google/Facebook have brought about surveillance capitalism.

SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA: RACIST HATE SPEECH IS FINE - ITS NOT OUR JOB TO POLICE YOUTUBE COMMENTS; COMPARE TO ANTI-BBC FLAK 

There is a serious point/principle at play here, not unlike the hypocrisy-soaked shrieks of outrage that greet any attempt to raise meaningful press regulation: it is a potential threat to democracy to have statutory press regulation ... but of course the (right-wing) press love to pile on calls for tougher regulation of all other media.

Australia has been working through political attempts to make new media giants Google and Facebook legally liable to compensate news media for content they use, exploit, distribute, share, publish - the exact term you'd use has big legal consequences. Is Google a publisher? If so, it must pay for content and be legally responsible for libel and meeting regulatory standards. This includes user comments....

SkyNews Australia has been accused of a Fox News-style ultra right-wing agenda. Note: it's UK equivalent isn't seen in this way, as an OfCom-compliant news channel. The Guardian reports on the mass of racist comments under a short news clip, posted on YouTube, on the shooting of a BLM activist in London. The clip is fine - but News Corp Australasia ) Murdoch's local subsidiary) insist they are not the publisher of the comments - Google is; it's their responsibility to police racist hate speech!!!

They do have a point - but to performativize this to the extent of refusing to delete (or simply block all) comments is unconscionable. 

'After this story was published on Thursday, YouTube advised Guardian Australia they were now “actively” removing comments that violated community guidelines.' Prompted by the paper's claim that much of the hate speech remained, I checked for myself on 27.5.21 - and sure enough, there remains a dominant thread of repugnant racism in the comments underneath. Check for yourself here.

So, who is responsible for policing user comments online??? Is it Google/Alphabet in the case of YouTube? Or the account-holder uploading and publishing the video, and not only permitting comments but not either vetting (selecting the moderate all comments before publication option) or moderating comments? 'spokesperson said. “Sky News Australia is not the author of user comments on the YouTube platform. We suggest you direct your inquiries to Google.”'

There IS a HUGE principle at stake here, so I can understand the rationalisation behind this stance. But I have a channel with many 100s of videos, I'm rather busy ... but I vet all comments before publication. Same for Blogger, on which I've had over a million post reads across multiple blogs. I'm not prepared to risk hateful comments. I'm certainly not going to rely on Google's ability/will to enforce 'community guidelines'.

Both SkyNews and Google are monetising that BLM shooting video. Advertisers pay more when there's evidence of user engagement, so the racist hate speech is driving up revenue. How can BOTH these conglomerate giants get away with refusing or failing to police hate speech on their own channel/platform?

Another angle on this centres on OnlyFans, a UGC site that has been hailed for its explosive growth as an exemplar of the future of new media. The BBC article itself warns that some readers might find some of its report disturbing, as it covers exploitation of teens posting explicit content, and I'll reiterate that. If you want to read more, it is a lengthy, detailed report covering reports from schools, police, parents and teen uploaders plus analysis of UK proposals (now 2 years old and still with no definite timeframe for enacting) to fine companies up to 10% of global revenue for posting illegal content featuring under-18s. The BBC investigation suggests that the site's vetting procedures to prevent under-18s from registering are failing; the company repeatedly points to an updated registration process.

WHITHER DEMOCRACY - ATTEMPT TO BREACH UK GOV SECRECY OVER PSB PLANS

Words fail me on this. Appalling.

BBC CENSORS RU PAUL PRINCE ANDREW JOKE

Curious 'logic' of protecting the public from offence given how widely loathed the subject of the joke is since his disastrous BBC interview on sex offences. Even more so as they left in another joke about his tastes. 

The Guardian speculates this reflects the Tory government imposing a Tory Director General on the BBC.

'The edits to Drag Race came at a time when the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, is battling with a government trying to stamp its authority on the national broadcaster, with Conservative MPs accusing the BBC of being unpatriotic and failing to promote the union flag in its publications. Davie was also accused of curbing leftwing comedy programmes that have been unpopular with leading Tories.'

DISNEY'S CANCEL CULTURE ISSUE GOES MUCH DEEPER THAN PRINCE CHARMING'S NO CONSENT KISS: EXTENSIVE RACISM

People tend to overlook that Walt Disney himself was a rabid racist. Good Guardian article that runs through some examples of the racism in Disney classics. 

"streaming services such as Disney+ and the UK’s Now TV have recently added disclaimers to films such as Peter Pan and The Aristocats, making clear that the much-loved animations feature outdated and potentially offensive stereotypes.

It’s a clumsy approach, but the alternative would be to go through each movie frame by frame and excise everything that upsets modern-day sensibilities. The result would be the eventual destruction of these films, a sort of death by a thousand final cuts. Or Disney could just remake everything, which seems to be happening behind the scenes in any case."

FOX NEWS MADE ME DO IT - LEGAL DEFENSE?!

Not necessarily a hypodermic syringe application, it's as much two-step flow (being influenced by people or organs with status). One of the Trump supporters who invaded the American Congress has used the persistent Fox News coverage pushing the line that Biden had stolen the election from Trump as his legal defense. 

It's also notable that the US has fairly weak media regulation after years of deregulation through the FCC, advertisers having at least as much influence over TV and radio content. Subscription TV like HBO carries much more explicit drama series like The Sopranos that the ad-funded national networks wouldn't run. Guardian.

ITALY FINALLY SCRAPS 1914 RELIGIOUS FILM CENSORSHIP

The last major application of the laws was 1998, but it's still quite shocking that a major Western democracy would still have such regressive laws on the books in 2021. The removal will no doubt annoy religious conservatives though. Guardian.

ITALY BANS TIKTOK OVER COPYCAT KID DEATH

The era of unregulated new media looks to be fading fast. Italy has given TikTok a month to prove all its users have authentically proven their age (13+) after a young girl died from 'playing the choking game'. Choking yourself to get a high has been a recent TikTok trend, not exactly the first dangerous concept to spread through the app (+ wider social media to be fair) with so many people desparate for their 15 shares of fame. 

Copycat behaviour is of course a primary concern for and factor in BBFC age rating - generally with a thin basis of evidence behind it, but perhaps social media is backing their analysis? See Guardian.The era of unregulated new media looks to be fading fast. Italy has given TikTok a month to prove all its users have authentically proven their age (13+) after a young girl died from 'playing the choking game'. Choking yourself to get a high has been a recent TikTok trend, not exactly the first dangerous concept to spread through the app (+ wider social media to be fair) with so many people desparate for their 15 shares of fame. 

Copycat behaviour is of course a primary concern for and factor in BBFC age rating - generally with a thin basis of evidence behind it, but perhaps social media is backing their analysis? See Guardian.

TORY DONOR TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN

No comment needed?! Guardian. 

YOUTUBE BANS RADIO CHANNEL OFCOM SAYS IS OK!

TalkRadio has had its channel removed for including anti-lockdown views. OfCom has noted that this is YouTube's decision and that TalkRadio's content remains fine within its UK license conditions. Guardian. 

UPDATE...Within 24 hours YouTube reversed its decision! Murdoch (who owns the station) will be pleased - hurrah!

OFCOM FINE INDIAN NEWS CHANNEL £20K

Guardian.

OFCOM CENSURE RADIO STATION OVER COVID CONSPIRACY + FORCE BROADCAST OF RULING

A fine is being discussed too (Guardian). The contrast with IPSO (have given themselves the power to fine the papers that signed up... but have never used it) is striking. If the likes of the Mail were forced to feature rulings on its front page/lead story on the app/web page would they really continue to break the Editors Code? That would be very damaging. 

IPSO does not cover taste, decency. Lightshade lover ruling

An odd case, but certainly illuminating on the limited purview of IPSO. An interesting contrast with BBFC here, which quite explicitly does judge taste (annual reviews of public opinion on swear words etc) and decency (it refuses an 18 if it judges a film work to be without artistic merit and obscene, thus breaching the archaic, shamefully undemocratic Obscene Publications Act, as it did with Human Centipede II).

The complaints panel at the press regulator sided with the newspaper, saying that they acknowledged that the article was considered to be “offensive and upsetting” by Liberty but that Ipso do not cover issues of taste and decency.

Woman's attraction to chandeliers not a sexual orientation, ruling says.

BBFC inside view but nothing on Sweet 16

Interesting if quite lenient feature from a writer invited into their offices. He mentions Sweet Sixteen ... but doesn't appear to have asked about anything as awkward as this.

So, a bit of a puff piece but some very useful details and context.

Sex, violence, f-bombs and randy sausages: a day inside the BBFC https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/16/bbfc-british-board-film-classification-sex-violence-fbombs-randy-sausages?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

NUDITY FACEBOOK wethenipple protest over double standards

FOLLOW-UP RESOURCES: 

2020 MARCH: LIZZO ATTACKS TIKTOK FOR RACIST, BODY SHAMING CENSORSHIP (Guardian)

2020 OCTOBER INSTA ACCUSED OF CENSORING ONLY PLUS-SIZED WOMEN'S BODIES (Guardian)

While IPSO has an Editor's Code (though it had nothing to say about Page 3 & it's discrimination clause certainly doesn't impact sexist coverage) the web is a largely unregulated media (the so-called wild wild web).

Facebook, like Google (especially YouTube) and others to a lesser degree, is under fire from governments and pressure groups for its undermining of democracy and general lack of openness. Unlike the BBFC and IPSO these FAANGS giants (& smaller co's) keep their algorithms and rule books as closely guarded secrets, their information firewall occasionally breached by whistleblowers or research.

STORY: Guardian, JUNE 2019: Naked protesters condemn nipple censorship at Facebook headquarters.

The different treatment given to the male and female nipple is one case where the social media giants' policies are known. All are censorious of the female nipple, operating a stark double standard with the male nipple, though the effectiveness of this varies - Instagram and Facebook run algorithms to remove such images (including many cases, controversially, of breast feeding), while the likes of YouTube run ineffective age 'blocks'.

This has sparked multiple campaigns I've blogged on before, notably freethenipple. #wethenipple is another, enacting a smartly designed naked protest outside Facebook US offices - covering their nakedness with cutouts of male nipples.

The issue, as I've pointed out before, is complex. The gender binary is well established in law - women can be prosecuted for 'indecent exposure' for baring their nipples, men can't. Media coverage continues to normativize the sexualisation of the female nipple.

Such law (and media policies) is oblivious to the contemporary undermining of the gender binary through increasing visibility and prominence of queered identities, leading to an increase in gender-free toilets. Butler would approve - while some US states have passed laws (sparking cultural boycotts) banning trans people from using bathrooms of their asserted gender.

What isn't so ambiguous is the problematic nature of giants like Facebook, increasingly influential in shaping opinion and cultural views, having secretive unregulated rules on what they deem acceptable or unacceptable.

As weak, largely ineffective and lamentably limited (ownership? lack of pluralism?) as the Editor's Code is, it is at least transparent, with decisions explained (though no ruling is made if mediated) on their website, as are the BBFC's (in their case backed by regular research into public attitudes on swearing etc).

What isn't

NETFLIX to set BBFC ratings

Netflix to set its own age ratings for film and television programmes. 

Film regulation just got more complicated ...

The BBFC has loosened its monopoly on film ratings, allowing Netflix to set its own age ratings (using the BBFC categories and logos), stating that the scale of Netflix content and additions is too much for the organisation's workforce to cope with. They'll do a monthly sample to check Netflix ratings meet and are consistent with BBFC standards.

There are powerful arguments for and against this:

+ its an overdue response from the BBFC to the explosion of streamed content not tied to traditional TV companies/stations/broadcasters+ checks are in place to ensure ratings are consistent with existing standards+/- its an extension of free-market ideology, favoured by right-wingers (usually opposed to state control; the public sector)- its an extension of censorship (if you accept arguments that age ratings = censorship)- will Netflix really be as accountable as the BBFC, who publish details (parental guide) with every age rating decision?

Netflix has been given the power to set its own official age ratings for its films and television programmes, in a move that could spell the end for the traditional role of the British film censor. 

Under a first-of-its-kind deal announced on Thursday, the British Board of Film Classification will allow the US streaming giant to rate its own material and then use the official British age rating symbols on all of its content. 

“Because of the sheer amount of material that’s out there it’s not logistically viable for the BBFC to view everything in the traditional way,” said Craig Lapper, the BBFC’s head of compliance. “We’re going to permit them to produce BBFC ratings by applying our guidelines and standards to their content.” 

At the moment only films or DVDs which have been watched and assessed by an in-house BBFC employee can carry the recognisable U, PG, 12, 15 or 18 logos.Under the new system Netflix will essentially be allowed to mark its own homework. The BBFC will carry out a monthly audit on a selection of programmes to make sure the streaming service is meeting its side of the bargain. During the year-long pilot Netflix will use an algorithm to rank its own content in line with BBFC guidelines, based on its existing human-created database of programme content.

BBFC Red Sparrow gets favourable 15

(placeholder for now, TBC)

See also 
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/19/hugh-jackman-logan-most-complained-about-film-2017-bbfc

$69m IP/star vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence (based on hit novel optioned + adapted by Fox).
The BBFC judged the original cut an 18, but advised on a specific cut (to a garroting scene) to get a 15.

The marketing for the film caused another controversy over JL's low cut dress. (IndieWire)

BBFC.
Wiki.
RtnTmts.
IMDB.
IMDB Parents Guide. Note the 12 rating in France.
Official site.
Trailer.
MelonFarmers (be aware of dubious links on this site)

Reviews: Guardian (Observer); Ebert; TheAtlantic;

Perhaps surprisingly, The Daily Mail didn't manage to get outraged by the movie:

MelonFarmers.

PCC IPSO effectiveness the arguments FOR

A bullet-pointed, abbreviated list; everything I refer to below is covered in more detail elsewhere in this blog and/or handouts (many of which are also embedded within posts).

IPSO
There is very little change from PCC to IPSO, but there is some:
IPSO has exercised a new power (still no sanctions if papers refuse though) to insist on front page corrections: it has forced The S*n to do this over a false claim about Jeremy Corbyn, and the Daily Express (in Dec 2016) for claiming English is dying out in schools; they have also forced The Times to do this.
The Editor's Code was revised for 2016, now including headlines within Clause 1 (Accuracy)
Part of this revision was to explicitly require SWIFT resolution of complaints.
They have increased the non-industry representation on their board
They have shown a much greater willingness to consider third party complaints, something the PCC was criticised (by the Culture Select Committee) for routinely threatening to do (The Express '311 languages spoken in our schools' story about the decline of spoken English was one example)
They have been much more assertive over website content, notably including US editions - even more notably, this includes ruling against the Mail Online, the world's leading newspaper online and the newspaper group many accuse IPSO of being run by

PCC
There are very few examples to convincingly argue that the press have been effectively regulated, but all of these points can be raised:
- the PCC consistently highlighted high 'satisfaction ratings' in their annual reviews
- despite all the contrary evidence, they did get fulsome praise from Tony Blair and David Cameron
- (and, when FINALLY responding to Calcutt's 1993 recommendation to replace the PCC with statutory regulation, the 1995 Tory gov praised the PCC)
- Prince William held a 'thankyou party' for the PCC and national editors (we'll consider this more later)
- by encouraging non-legal resolutions to disputes (ie, not the courts, expensive lawyers), they arguably made resolution more attainable for ordinary people
- a glib argument, rather hypocritically used by a press who leave to scream for state regulation of TV/film/ads/web, but still important: the press remains (notionally...) free from state/political interference; we have a 'free press' in the UK unlike many authoritarian nations (China etc)
- a linked point: it was/is self-funding: it costs the taxpayer nothing (ditto the BBFC), unlike OfCom (around £100m a year)
- the PCC argued that the numbers of cases 'resolved' itself indicated success, and that every correction or removal of article/picture proves their effectiveness
- three notable improvements from the PCC over the GCP and Press Council that preceded it: (1) lay membership become dominant; this wasn't just a press body judging the press, but also many non-press outsiders (2) it had a published 'Editor's Code' which set out the grounds on which complaints could be made and on which they would be judged [the PC did this in their final year, but essentially neither the GCP nor PC made the basis of judgements, or an open set of standards, known] (3) as is now accepted practice across the board for media regulators (the BBFC in particular highlights this, labelling their published information 'BBFC Insight' and specifically proclaiming this as a service for parents), the PCC publish their Code and judgements on a website, as well as detailed annual reports
There are few respectable sources who will offer up arguments for the PCC specifically, though there are more who will argue the wider point in favour of self-regulation; I recommend in particular looking for the 'Peter Preston' tag in the tagcloud. A former Guardian editor who also briefly served on the PCC, he continues to pen articles strongly advocating self-regulation, and even defending the record of the PCC. He insists that they do a better job than statutory regulators like OfCom. The PCC's website itself naturally contains useful material arguing that it is an effective regulator.

The counter-argument is overwhelming, but you mustn't make the mistake of simply ignoring the points above. Its also worth stressing that the apparent failure of self-regulation isn't a direct argument for statutory regulation: it is simply a reflection that the form and nature of the self-regulation we have had has been ineffective. The GCP, PC and PCC have all been largely reactive bodies, mainly responding to complaints (as explicitly highlighted in the PCC's very name), although the PCC did occasionally intervene when contacted with pre-publication concerns by those who would be impacted by planned articles. It also remained too dominated by press figures, despite the numbers of lay people involved. If a tougher regime, with the power to fine (as Leveson recommended, but the press rejected, and IPSO won't have), to enforce corrections within a timescale and on a page/size of its choosing, or even, as had been discussed, inflicting tax on papers who repeatedly breached the agreed standards or, like Desmond, just refused to come under the regulatory system ... then self-regulation may very well be effective.
So, before going into the many reasons for and examples of ineffective press self-regulation, do remember that this is not necessarily proof that self-regulation doesn't work - just that the style and approach of a system that, for example, ignores issues around press ownership, is (and surely will be with the not-so-different IPSO?) ineffective, as can clearly be seen by the consistently poor standards of our national press.

YouTube rank pranks endangering children?

Who should regulate this - OfCom (YouTube channel equivalent to TV channel?), BBFC (video - after all, they partially regulate music video on YouTube)? The social media giants are getting a really easy ride compared to the tightly regulated TV and (to a lesser degree; no ownership restrictions) film industries, both of which are subject to strict licensing systems. Surely they ARE now competitors to both, so perhaps the tough regulation on film/TV is unfair - unless also applied to UGC and social media?

Mean stream: when YouTube pranks go horribly wrong.

Pranks have been a booming part of YouTube’s scene for years – but it’s a subculture prone to attracting controversy. The latest incident has led to a US father and a stepmother losing custody of two of their children as a result of some of their prank videos.Mike Martin of Baltimore ran a channel named DaddyOFive, featuring his wife, Heather, and their five children. At the height of the controversy, but before his videos were made private, DaddyOFive had more than 750,000 subscribers and the clips were viewed more than 176m times.Family YouTube channels are not uncommon – but the Martins were accused of child abuse because they regularly made their children the subject of their pranks.

FILM MPAA R transferred to court case

Weinstein Company appeals against R-rating for transgender film 3 Generations.

WEB tightens as BBFC expands to online age checks

Pornography sites face UK block under enhanced age controls.


PRO
Protecting children


ANTI
Unrealistic aim?
Potentially restricting adult freedom of choice: many sites would simply block UK IP addresses (identifying web users as being in the UK) rather than run the risk of fines, or take on the cost of a separate monitoring and age verification system for this one market
Potential for government abuse: the legislation uses the terms pornography and adult content interchangably; as we've discussed with Baise Moi the term pornography is slippery enough, but adult content can be defined as widely as the government wishes.

ADVERTISER POWER YouTube censors demonetised videos

A notable outcry here, as it reinforces one of the fundamental lessons needed to grasp the complexities of media regulation: advertisers form a de facto, informal regulator. If they won't pay for space in your outlet, in most media industries that will lead to a revenue crisis.

Chomsky has advertiser power as one of the five filters in his propaganda model.

The row and resignation over the Daily Telegraph spiking critical stories about HSBC to protect its advertising account with the bank; the 1960s manoeuvres of The Times to get rid of its new working class readers when advertisers refused to pay any extra for these non-ABC1s; Murdoch closing NoTW only when multiple advertiser boycotts were announced, with more to follow after social media campaigns, which threatened to contaminate other News Corp outlets; the fate of the Daily Herald, a left-wing, union owned paper that was for a time the biggest selling in the world, but would ultimately collapse and reappear as Murdoch's right-wing S*n ...

Some of the trashy YouTube content undermined by YouTube withdrawing ads from 'unsuitable' videos may appear trivial, but the principles of freedom of speech and media diversity are always most easily undermined by picking soft targets to establish censorial practices that can then be arbitrarily widened.

YouTube and Facebook, together with their all-important advertisers, exist as largely unregulated behemoths, gaining an ever expanding role in the media landscape. Censorship, whether it comes down to algorithm 'tweaks' or demonetising videos matters as mainstream media's reliance on digital platforms, not least these two, grows.

With more and more low/micro-budget and back catalogue films going online, not least through YouTube, this can also be viewed as an alternative form of regulation to the formal BBFC system.

YouTube video makers protest as ads are stripped from 'inappropriate' content.

MPAA try to stub out smoking hot topic

The whole basis of the MPAA's voluntary (unlike the BBFC, it doesn't have statutory powers, but its ratings are followed by most major retailers and exhibitors) rating system faces a legal challenge, with the tobacco industry keen to ensure that smoking on screen is ... accessible to children.

Perhaps the classic image of Hollywood glamour, Audrey Hepburn

Applying political issues

“Some media regulatory practices are more effective than others.” Discuss. [OCR June 2013]

There are many forms of media regulation within the UK market alone, and more at the supranational level and in other countries. For example, film regulation, through the BBFC in the UK and the MPAA in the US, has notable differences. The issues of concern to each regulated media industry can vary too. In this essay I will explore some of the similarities and differences between the regulation of the film, press and TV industries in the UK, with some international comparisons. This requires comparing two approaches to self-regulation, the voluntary press system (until recently the PCC, now IPSO) and the statutory film system (BBFC), with the statutory 'superregulator' of broadcast (TV and radio), web and telephony, OfCom. OfCom and the BBFC are also quangos, a significant point I shall explore. I shall also consider examples linked to the issues of protection of children and the clashing adult right to free speech, privacy, and the tensions over the democratic role of media and democratic oversight of them, including the often neglected issue of ownership.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO, the 2014 successor to the Press Complaints Commission, PCC) stands in contrast to the other two as an entirely voluntary system with no statutory power or compulsion. The long history of rebadging and relaunching the same system suggests this has been an ineffective solution. From 1694 to 1953 the press enjoyed the unique distinction of having no formal regulatory system or organisation, those being the years licenses were scrapped for newspaper publishing (removing a significant layer of political control and censorship in the process) and the launch date of the General Council of the Press. There had been wide agreement with the NUJ (National Union of Journalists) call for reforms of the press industry in 1945, but this being seen as a delicate matter for democracy, with the press conceived of a 'fourth estate' independent from politics and business, another pattern was set. No party wanted to be seen as imposing censorship on the press, attracting their powerful hostility and in all likelihood struggling to win elections with such negative coverage, so a Royal Commission on the Press was launched in 1947, above party politics as a panel of independent experts.

It reported in 1949 that a regulator was required, and that there were serious issues with concentration of ownership into too few hands, general standards of content, and the overwhelming predominance of right-wing views and support amongst the national daily newspapers (although ti did feel that much of this would be resolved by the free market once the industry had recovered from WW2. The four year gap between this and the launch of the GCP is indicative of the reluctance of the press to engage in any regulation, no matter how minimal. It was only the threat of statutory regulation via legislation that persuaded the industry to agree to setting up a regulator themselves.

Arguably very little has changed today, with both the PCC and IPSO failing to cover several newspapers. Richard Desmond decided in 2011 that he would withdraw the two national dailies his Northern and Shell conglomerate owned, the Star and Express titles, from the PCC. This was not only a cost-saving measure, as the press pays a levy to fund the press regulator (similarly to the also self-funding BBFC, it does not receive any government funding), but also conveniently avoided two of the most-complained about papers receiving any more brand-damaging judgements. When the Star used the divorce of a rock guitarist from Toploader and his celebrity wife as an excuse to print stories on and photos of their young children, the family could not complain to the PCC but instead had to go straight to court, an expensive option not open to everyone. Remarkably, there was and is no sanction for this. IPSO is also an entirely voluntary regulator and The Guardian, Indie/i and FT all refused to join and so currently exist outside the system of press regulation.

There simply is no opting out of either the BBFC or OfCom systems. OfCom is a licensing power, and has removed the license from several TV channels, including Iran-funded Press TV for repeatedly breaching regulations. That makes it a criminal offence for any TV distribution platform, the likes of Sky, BT, Virgin or even Netflix and Amazon to carry the channel in the UK. In the case of the BBFC, if they refuse to issue an 18 or R18 rating that also makes it a criminal offence to distribute or exhibit that movie, a power they have only used three times since 2010, but had used much more frequently in the past. There is an exception here, arguably a positive example of local oversight being added to a national system: local councils have the power to issue their own ratings on the very rare occasions when they disagree with a BBFC decision. This was exercised in 2000 for the then-banned 1973 slasher movie "The Last House on the Left", with those limited screenings presumably pushing an embarrassed BBFC to finally issue the film with an 18 for an uncut version the following year.

Where the regulation of film and TV has been established through the passing of laws with relatively little fuss (at least until the current government began to pursue an openly hostile approach to the BBC and C4), repeated parliamentary investigations and reports have failed to make any fundamental difference to press regulation, with no party in power willing to gamble their re-election prospects on angering a still-powerful press. A second RCP reported just a decade after the 1st that the GCP had been a failure and that the state of the press was now worse, requiring tougher measures. With the threat of statutory regulation again raised, the industry replaced the GCP with the Press Council, which itself would be condemned as a failure by a third RCP in 1977 - two versions of the press regulator condemned as unfit for purpose within little more than 20 years of the first being launched.

One potentially significant change did come from the send RCP report, a legal change to require the signature of a government minister to agree any future sales of newspaper titles. None of the now four press regulators have had anything to say about the ownership of the press, a fundamental issue without consideration of which there arguably can be no effective press regulation. In practice, in the now 50 years since this legal change not one single sale has been refused by the government. Indeed, recently released documents show that Mrs Thatcher went out of her way to illegally smooth the path for Rupert Murdoch to take over the Times newspapers in the 1980s, Murdoch being seen as 'one of us', a reliable right-winger who would promote right-wing ideas through his papers. Murdoch would of course lead one of the most significant union-busting actions of the 1980s, taking on and defeating the powerful print unions with the full force of the police made available to him.

It is a picture Curran and Seaton would recognise from the 1850s, a time seen as marking the starting point of a truly free press as the government scrapped tax (stamp duty) on papers. Marxist academics, they quote from parliamentary debate to show how undermining the flourishing radical (mainly left-wing) press, and its spreading of class consciousness and awareness of the growing trade union movement, was the explicit aim of these reforms, which has taken on hegemonic status as an unquestionably good thing.

When the phone-hacking scandal, and public outrage over the Milly Dowling case in particular, created ...

Mass media doomed, democracy too with churnalism?

Roy Greenslade recently opined that UK newspapers have reached the cliff edge, and could die out en masse very quickly now. The spark was a dreadful set of annual returns showing even the juggernaut of the Daily Mail struggling with print advertising.

Read article here.

Curran and Seaton looked back to the supposed liberalisation and birth of a free press with the 1853 scrapping of tax on newspapers, highlighting the role that advertisers played in deciding which papers survived the shake up. They found that it was mostly radical (left-wing) papers that closed, with advertisers effectively boycotting titles that spread news or views that undermined their parent businesses capitalist prospects (for instance by spreading knowledge of the trade union movement and fostering a working class consciousness).

Chomsky included advertisers as one of the five filters removing counter-hegemonic ideas and information from mainstream media in his propaganda model.

The role that advertisers can play in shaping editorial was shown when Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne revealed the paper had spiked pieces critical of major advertiser HSBC.

Today's very right-wing S*n newspaper grew out of a left-wing Daily Herald that faced secret services harassment but ultimately folded because they couldn't win sufficient advertising, despite offering the largest newspaper circulation in the country (at one stage the world!) at a time.

What do IPSO, the press regulator, have to say on this? Nothing.

Is this time of extreme pressure a good one to toughen up regulation of the press, with Impress if recognised and granted a royal charter threatening to bring huge fines to the table?

The BBFC arguably showed with their refusal to re-rate Postman Pat to PG that they wouldn't create such financial, business issues for film distributors once a film is in cinemas (all the marketing material, and even the trailer and actual film prints, would need replacing!). Perhaps then it is right if similar leniency is shown to a financially struggling industry ... or maybe the basic principles at stake are just too important to dilute?

Either way, without professional journalism, what hope has democracy got? The churnalists of the Daily Mail website are controversial as they largely rewrite other papers work and re-present it as their own. Google and Facebook are likewise feasting off the expensive product created by mass media papers.

Mass media is over, but where does journalism go from here? (Greenslade, 2016)

With advertising being so utterly dominated by just two online giants, how can a press pay for its content in future? The Times and S*n have both shown that newspaper online subscriptions are a very, very hard sell indeed.

BBFC review and comparison with MPAA

The BBFC is a statutory regulator: it has the power of law behind its decisions. Originally set up by the industry in 1912 to avoid tougher censorship, and to solve the problem of each local council coming up with their own codes, making distribution difficult, its board retains links with industry but its Director is appointed in consultation with government.

It is a typical quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation): not part of a government industry but not fully free from government control either. Anti-censorship academic Julian Petley argues that the BBFC effectively reflects the will of the government without the government being accountible for their actoins. Like OfCom, the government set out the duties in legislation which they have to enforce: the 1984 Video Recordings Act greatly expanded their remit to cover video.

The BBFC is self-funding, though the cost of compulsory rating (charged per minute, so DVD extras can add considerable costs) is criticised by some Indie distributors who say it is unfair on low budget releases with limited box office/sales potential, to the point (£2-3k) where they sometimes can't afford a separate UK release.

Local authorities each have the power to overturn a BBFC rating for their own area, a power rarely used but has been seen with:

• Spiderman (2002) - reduced from 12 to PG by several, helping to usher in the 12A rating which allows younger children to see such films if accompanied by an adult
• This is England (2006) - Warp's social realist Indie production, a typically low £1.5m budget, got a controversial 18 rating principally because of a racist violent scene at the end (which causes the young protagonist to reject the racist path, but the moral message was deemed unimportant); in this case it was left-wing papers leading the press outcry and some councils agreed, giving it the 15 the producers had originally anticipated
• The Dark Knight (2008) - is it a coincidence that the $185m tentpole production from Warner Bros, one of the big six Hollywood conglomerates that dominate global cinema, got a favourable 12-rating despite being so violent and indeed marketed on its realism? The BBFC argues this was cartoon in style and so did't require a 15, an interesting contrast with  (which carried an important social message and representation funded by the UK government through the UK Film Council but which lost any hope of significant box office with this rating - in contrast to the ultra-violence of American comic book characters). 2016's Batman v Superman was also heavy on the violence, if less realistic, and got a 12. Backed by a prominent campaign in the Daily Mail and other right-wing papers, several councils re-rated Dark Knight as a 15.
• 1973's Last House on the Left was screened whilst effectively banned by the BBFC, as some local authorities granted it an 18 for limited screening nearly 30 years after it was banned - the embarassment this caused the BBFC likely contributed to its getting a belated 18 BBFC rating.

Just like the PCC and now IPSO, this film 'regulator' has nothing to say about ownership or monopoly in the film industry, or the dominance of the American big six. There are of course links, with Murdoch owning 20th Century Fox as well as The Times, S*n etc. Thatcher scrapped a quota system in 1985 that had previously guaranteed cinemas would show a minimum of British-made films. Today Hollywood films account for over 80% of UK cinema screenings, much more if we consider the US ownership of 'British' companies like Working Title.

Having successfully used the early 1980s video nasty moral panic to gain legal power over rating videos, the BBFC has since expanded into games (though PEGI delivers most of this) and music videos.

Its openness is probably the key point in favour of the regulator, boosting any argument that it is an effective regulator. Before James Ferman retired in 1999 though, it had been considered secretive and too close to government, especially the right-wing Conservative government led by Thatcher. Today, its Insight service provides specific detail on every decision it makes, and the criteria for age ratings are easily accessible on its website, and it has 12k followers for its Twitter account. It also undertakes regular audience research to see if values or expectations are changing to better represent the British public's views.

There have been relatively few controversies since the end of Ferman's reign, as the BBFC became more open and accountible. This coincided with a period of Labour government, so the liberalisation was perhaps partially due to the different political atmosphere after Thatcher's ultra-conservative reign where she tried to censor the press, TV and film (her successor as Tory PM, John Major, also showed his instincts with a 'back to basics' campaign for old-fashioned moral values).

That lack of controversy (there are few exceptions, but these are important!) is a strong sign of their effectiveness as a regulator, and can be contrasted very strongly with the press self-regulators, now on its fourth iteration as IPSO, the previous three having been disbanded as failures. There have been only 3 movies banned in recent years, and one of these, Human Centipede II, did get a release after extensive cuts. Many of the BBFC's historical rulings are at best dubious (The Wild One, Enter the Dragon, Last House on the Left), but the modern organisation seems unlikely to be viewed to be as out of touch. This statement from the BBFC's website exemplifies the very different approach they now take, partly reflecting a law passed under the Labour government:

In line with the consistent findings of the BBFC’s public consultations and The Human Rights Act 1998, at 18 the BBFC’s guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment with some exceptions.

The R18 rating is another element of this, providing a restricted right to distribute pornography (in licensed sex shops only), though the Tory government has introduced a fairly arbitrary list of sexual acts it considers indecent, deviant and harmful, a stance that is likely to be seen as outmoded as the hard line on any sexual depiction that held firm up to the 1970s, and the Thatcher government's determination to limit depictions of homosexuality.

It is notable that the deregulation of UK TV with the move from the ITC to OfCom has not brought any comparable liberalisation, with C4 recently being censured for showing a 12A-rated movie at 6.55pm! OfCom and the BBFC each face a fundamental challenge from digitisation, with the easy access to online content and downloading, not to mention region 1 DVDs (including unrated versions of films not assessed or cut by the MPAA), undermining the effectiveness of age restrictions.

However, while OfCom persists with very stringent application of its watershed regulations even as more of the audience timeshift their viewing, making scheduling regulation seem increasingly outmoded (and again children can very easily access TV and films, including US series not yet broadcast in Britain, online, via Torrent sites for example, or by accessing parents' Netflix, Amazon prime or other streaming accounts), the BBFC is more realistic. The 12A rating is only for cinema; the BBFC are clear that DVD ratings are mandatory for retailers and distributors, but that this cannot be policed within the home - that is a parental responsibility. Perhaps newspaper flak is more impactive on TV cases than on film cases, with the BBC and C4 in particular under intense pressure just to prevent government privatization; when the BBC Director General dared suggest the watershed had indeed been outmoded by the internet the right-wing press was predictably savage, a classic case of what Chomsky's propaganda model would term 'flak' (one of his five filters that remove or undermine counter-hegemonic content from media discourse). See http://mediareg.blogspot.lu/2015/01/bbc-dg-invites-flak-by-suggesting.html.

The BBFC does of course have pressure groups committed to securing tougher censorship, notably MediaWatch, the successor organisation to Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners Association, used by the government and BBFC to help build a sense of public demand for what became the 1984 Video Recordings Act (that includes a specific requirement to consider the greater 'harm' that might be done by accessing home media, with the ability to pause and rewind!).

DIFFERENCES WITH THE MPAA

The MPAA has no legal status; it is an industry self-regulator. Distributors have no legal requirement to submit a movie to the MPAA for rating, and exhibitors/retailers are not legally bound by its ratings (though will conventionally enforce these).

In contrast to the UK, where no BBFC rating means a legal ban, US films can be released unrated. This will usually limit distribution - though not as much as the highest MPAA rating, NC-17, which is an absolute kiss of death at the box office.

There are suspicions that the BBFC is more favourable towards studio films; this seems clearer with the MPAA. Trey Parker, director of South Park: The Movie, a rude, crude production backed by big 6 studio Paramount, discussed in  This Film is Not Yet Rated how that film got an R rating after very specific guidance from the MPAA, but his low-budget Indie debut, no more shocking or crude than South Park, got the dreaded NC-17 ... and he was left with no idea why, or how it might have been cut for an R rating: 

Independent distributor October Films purchased the rights to the film for one million dollars after its screening at the Toronto Film Festival.^[16] The film received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, which resulted in the poor box office performance of a film. Parker and Stone attempted to negotiate with the organization on what to delete from the final print, but the MPAA would not give specific notes.^[3] The duo later theorized that the organization cared less because it was an independent distributor which would bring it significantly less money.^[3] [Wiki]

MPAA ratings are not changed for DVD; the BBFC sometimes does, with the assumption that the ability to pause and rewind presents greater danger of potential harm or influence. 

Whereas the BBFC has sought over time to better reflect the UK population with greater social and cultural (including ethnic) diversity on its board, and is open about who sits on this, the MPAA remains secretive (as explored in This Fil is Not Yet rated) and mandates that only parents can join, and only if they have kids aged 5-15 (whenever those kids reach 21 they must step down).

Their appeals process adds two religious (Christian: Catholic and Methodist) figures into the mix, which seems extremely unlikely to generate favourable outcomes for distributors seeking lower age ratings!

In general terms, it appears that the US ratings board, representing the views of the American public, has a lower tolerance for nudity or sex scenes ... Conversely, the UK public seems to have a lower tolerance for aggression [BBFC]

There are caveats to this. The fact that the BBFC granted 18, not R-18, to two notorious, highly controversial movies that featured unsimulated sex scenes (including extended rape scenes) might seem highly liberal ... but Baise-Moi and Irreversible largely got the 18 rating based on the likely audience: sophisticated arthouse ABC1s, the typical niche audience for foreign-language movies in the UK.

See http://www.bbfc.co.uk/education-resources/education-news/same-difference for more detail on the comparison.

NIPPLEGATE + AMERICAN PSYCHO
The video below, from 2018, gives a reminder of the 'nipplegate' 'scandal' (Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' at the Superbowl half-time show, with one boob exposed - the nipple was actually covered). I raise this as it exemplified the very strong difference between US and UK censorship and cultural attitudes. The MPAA is toughest on sexual content, while the BBFC are toughest on violent content - especially sexual violence.
So, the BBFC banned a long list of 'video nasties' especially because of their linkage of sex with violence, and enforced many cuts on films like Enter the Dragon despite its 18 rating, whereas the MPAA looked at American Psycho (passed uncut by the BBFC) and insisted on cutting a sex scene. The sample from a handout quiz makes the point...

...