300 word summary - Regulation debate

I believe that as of today, Media regulation is more important than ever. However, I feel as though the system in its current state is heavily flawed. In an age where anyone can access whatever content they wish at the tip of their fingers, it has become almost impossible to regulate this material. Countless hours of footage are uploaded to sites like youtube every minute, making it virtually impossible to be manually monitored.

As well as this, material which is regulated (or even banned) is also accessible for free through pirate streaming services. I believe that there is little which the regulatory boards can do about this issue, leaving parents responsible. I believe parents should be educated about the type of content accepted for each age rating includes, and then form a moral decision whether or not their child would be comfortable viewing it, after all different individuals develop at different speeds, so whilst one 12 year old may feel comfortable watching 12 or higher films, another may react differently. Then once the individual and parent feels comfortable knowing what to expect in the product, they can be free to self-regulate the type of media they consume.

As for the internet, it is near impossible to regulate all content posted. A huge issue regarding that is the influx of kids-oriented content on youtube. While youtube’s kids app offers a filtered version of the site which only includes child-friendly content, many harmful videos targeting kids end up on the platform due to the app’s automatic regulation. It is important that parents closely examine the type of videos their kids are watching on the service, or better off, provide their child with a regulated app such as the cbeebies app.