Ban  #
Wednesday, 05 Jul 2006 09:19AM
There is no disputing the actions of those in front of the camera. It was wrong. End of arguement.

However those calling for the banning of Big Brother aren't thinking.

The "slap" was not broadcast on TV. It was almost never directly refered to in the daily show. It was broadcast on the live stream at in the early hours of the morning. Shortly afterwards the stream was shut off. It could easily have happened on Big Brother Uplate, but I don't think the actions of BB would have been any different.

The Big Brother producers went to ever effort to avoid broadcasting the footage. They talked about it and took action.

Overall they informed the public as well as they could [The Age] within the rules of television, ignoring the horrific apology show.

Compare this with The Age, who provided a live stream of the footage on their website. They deliberately and repeatedly broadcast the footage to thousands of readers. And to various news channels who broadcast images of the incident.

If the arguement is only over broadcasting of inappropriate material (and it sickens me to think that it is), then The Age should be in far more trouble than Big Brother.

You may argue that they are news providers and so they get special licence to broadcast the realities of life to us each day. Images of war and video footage of drunk men beating up security guards. But those images aren't of sex.

Ok.

Pop over to the Zoo website and watch a live feed of the lions. If say a madman were to jump in with the lions and the lions maul him to death, should we close the Zoo down for broadcasting such snuff film filth? For providing the temptation and opportunity for such an "incident" to happen?

We're living in a world full of live camera feeds. That isn't going to change. And neither are stupid people who do stupid things.

Shut off Big Brother and shut of every camera, and lose the chance to pass judgement on the behavour of others.

I'm surprised the nutjobs would allow that to happen.

They'd have nothing to do.