Quote from BBC news :

Row over video games ratings plan

Full article : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7533462.stm

Planned changes to the way video games are rated have sparked a row about who should be in charge of giving games their official age classification.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge has announced a consultation on whether the ratings for games should replicate the system for movies.

But games makers oppose plans, backed by MPs, for the British Board of Film Classification to rate games as well.

Under the current system the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) only rates those games considered to have significant adult content such as sexual material or extreme violence.

About 3% of all the games sold in the UK fall into this category and can only legally be sold to those aged over 18.

...

But a report published by MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has backed the BBFC to be the body to oversee games ratings.

In response to it getting a much greater role, a spokesman for the BBFC said: "There would be no problem at all taking on the extra work."

He said the way it was funded meant it could add extra staff to cope if it was asked to rate a much greater number of titles.

'Ridiculous' plan

For its part the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (Elspa) said it would prefer that the industry-backed Pegi scheme became the only rating system.

"What we are asking for is the government to empower Pegi with legal backing," said Michael Rawlinson, managing director of Elspa.

"We would like to remove confusion and have Pegi rate all games under the umbrella of the Video Recordings Act," he said.

Parents needed to know whether they were buying a film or a game, he said.

He said all the titles the BBFC rate are also currently rated under Pegi for reasons of "consistency and child safety".

As more and more games move online the need for consistency of rating was paramount, he said.

He said it would be "ridiculous" for video game packaging to carry two ratings.

"The compromise that Tanya Byron recommended in her report was not a good one for child safety," he said.

And now they want to install Mrs Whitehouse at youtube.

Quote from BBC News - whole article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7533543.stm]

Video websites 'must vet content' [/B]


YouTube said it believed it was a safe environment for children


YouTube has been criticised by MPs, who say it must do more to vet its content.

In a review of net safety, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee said a new industry body should be set up to protect children from harmful content.

It also said it should be "standard practice" for sites hosting user-generated content to review material proactively.

YouTube's owners said the site had strict rules and a system that allowed users to report inappropriate content.

And they want to clone Whitehouse and install her at YouTube.

First Elvis caused people to steal hubcaps, then Judas Priest made you top yourself, then it's the software industry. The BBFC, already a bunch of unelected quangos continually trying to outwhitehouse Whitehouse, are over-worked already, and they are only used to dealing with films. When they do the games they have to submit a video. That "Bully" which they had to certificate and gave a fifteen due to pressure from loons - well, Dennis the Menace is more violent.

not like you can find porn on youtube now.......

but hey at least theres youpwn and pwnotube.......................

And RedTube (which I only heard about via Kotaku)

But there's no way to properly vet online content. You can stick an age gate on a site, but there's no way to guarantee the age that person enters is accurate. Hell, I normally just leave it at Jan 1 and scroll the year down a random amount.

Here's a suggestion (and it might sound totally outrageous, but I don't care):
Don't let your kids surf the net unsupervised, or install one of the 600 billion babysitting software packages that exist. Surely it doesn't take a genius to work that out.

The ESRB (who rate games already) give an automatic "may change online" pseudo-Teen rating to any game with an online component. Retailers already refuse to stock unrated games, so this law won't change anything. And they generally do a pretty good job with it, even if it does seem to be made of Lords and Sir's and all that bollocks.

It's RETAILERS who should be getting into trouble for this, not developers or the ratings bodies. If someone wants a rated game, f*cking ID THEM! It's not difficult to understand. A blanket ID-or-no-sale system like knives or alcohol. Where is the problem?

Yep. Retailers need to take the ratings seriously (although this is getting better) and parents need to TAKE AN INTEREST IN WHAT THEIR KIDS DO.