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Compliance.

Internet / Other TV

In my day job, working in linear television, I have to deal quite a lot with compliance. On occasion, I even have had to issue my own official content warnings for various TV programmes.

It can, on occasion, be an exasperating experience. Of course, viewers need warning about certain kinds of content. But when a continuity announcement spends more time warning the viewer about potentially offensive content than setting up the actual programme, it can be a little annoying.

At times, I perhaps feel like “legacy” media needs to get with the times. Just a little.

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Tonight, I posted a short Bluesky thread about Confessions of a Driving Instructor. As part of that thread, I posted an image of Lynda Bellingham with her left tit out.

Bluesky immediately labelled this as “explicit sexual images”. I am not exaggerating here. That is literally and actually the exact phrase they used. The BBC gets endlessly criticised for compliance culture… and yet Bluesky thinks an errant nipple is an “explicit sexual image”.

I have nothing to say, except: perhaps people should stop leaping on the BBC for every single damn silly thing, and consider what happens online. Just occasionally.