Media content published by entities that are registered with the Press Council of South Africa will be exempt from the draft Online Regulation Policy currently under review by the Film and Publication Board (FPB).
This was confirmed by FPB chief operations officer, Sipho Risiba, who says an agreement was reached at a meeting this month.
"After the Press Council presented to the FPB a revised Press Code which incorporates the regulation by the Press Council of online press content, the FPB adopted the revised code."
The FPB's plans for classification of online content became public in March, when it published draft policy and opened it up for debate. Since then, the policy has met with wide scrutiny, with industry experts and activists calling it "vague" and opposing its ability to effectively censor free-speech.
The Right2Know Campaign has been one of the strongest opponents, calling the draft regulations "a totally unjustifiable censorship regime with nasty echoes from the past".
The Interactive Advertising Bureau of South Africa (IAB SA) says what remains problematic is that, at its core, the draft policy requires pre-classification prior to publication of any "film, game or certain publication". This would include all user-generated content distributed via social media platforms.
Risiba explains the FPB felt compelled to control the distribution of inappropriate content online through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and online publications.
"[The policy] is as an attempt to prevent premature exposure of children and sensitive readers and viewers to inappropriate content, and encourage responsible use by the public of new media and social networking sites."
A commitment from the FPB to exempt registered media is a step forward but IAB regulatory council head Andrew Allison says nothing has been formally confirmed in writing yet.
"It is a welcome signal of the FPB's willingness to engage and cooperate with the media, industry and the public, and represents a substantial step in the right direction towards a more constitutional and equitable balancing of freedom of expression with the need to protect children and vulnerable persons from harmful content," according to Allison.
New code for new world
The current press code does not explicitly cover online content and for this reason the IAB, Press Council and South African National Editors' Forum have been jointly working on a proposed new "Code of Ethics for South African Print and Online Media". This expands on and would replace the current Press Code and ensures press content is covered irrespective of medium. Print, online, social media content and digitally-streamed audio and video content would also fall under the new code.
"It is effectively a revision of the current Press Code, updated to be more digitally relevant and to introduce greater flexibility to ensure the code can remain relevant as the digital landscape continues to evolve and develop at an increasing pace," explains Allison.
Allison says while the IAB agrees with the FPB's goals of protecting children, it still does not see the need for the draft policy in its current form, and still believes that overall it is unconstitutional, unlawful and impractical.
"We believe that a system of self-regulation, or independent co-regulation (of which the Press Council is a critical part), is a far better means of achieving the FPB's goals of protecting children and vulnerable groups from harmful content," says Allison.
Blocking bloggers
The commitment by the FPB to endorse the new Press Code is a positive move but does not address all of the complaints against the proposed FPB regulation. Under the current draft policy, bloggers and social media commentators would still need to register with the FPB and submit content for classification prior to publishing. Allison says this is problematic for many reasons, including limiting free-speech.
"In its current wording, almost anyone uploading or posting content to the Internet, from the biggest business right down to someone posting in their personal capacity, would need to pre-classify through the FPB."
Risiba confirms that any person or group not registered with the Press Council will "fall under the regulatory authority of the FPB".
Internet Service Providers' Association regulatory advisor, Dominic Cull, says he doesn't see the draft policy ever being finalised, and believes it should simply be withdrawn.
"In its current form it remains unconstitutional, unlawful and impossible to implement," according to Cull.
Taking good from bad
What the draft policy has done, according to Cull, is open up a much-needed debate around how to properly regulate online content in order to protect the vulnerable from harmful or illegal content.
"There are things that need to be done to address Internet content and make sure children are protected but not by trying to classify everything on the Internet," says Cull.
Risiba says the FPB acknowledges that alone it will not be able to deal with the distribution of unclassified and illegal online content. He says the draft policy encourages partnership with industry stakeholders to regulate media content.
"The FPB is alive to the fact that the costs and level of expertise and capacity involved in the classification of the online content are too high and unattainable by the FPB with the current budgetary constraints. Hence it is important for the FPB, through the proposed co-regulation model, to pursue partnerships with online content distributors and administrators of new media and social networking sites, industry bodies and society at large to ensure content classification and compliance monitoring."
The period for public comment on the draft Online Regulation Policy expired on 15 July.
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