By IRNA,
London : An all-party group of British MPs Thursday called for the setting up of a self-regulatory body to police the internet.
The Culture, Media and Sport select committee said that leaving internet service providers to regulate themselves in protecting users from potential harm has resulted in an “unsatisfactory piecemeal approach which lacks consistency and transparency.”
“We therefore call on the industry to establish a self-regulatory body which would agree minimum standards, monitor their effectiveness, publish performance statistics and adjudicate on complaints,” the committee said.
It proposed that minimum standards would be based upon recommendations made by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, which is due to be established by the Government this autumn.
In a report on net safety, the MPs criticized some websites it had monitored as having a “lax” approach to removing illegal content. It said it was “shocked” that the industry standard for removing child abuse images was 24 hours.
Its criticism included the video-sharing provider YouTube and said it should be “standard practice” for sites hosting user-generated content to review material proactively. But Google, which owns YouTube, said it believed it had a safe environment for children “The Internet has transformed all our lives and is overwhelmingly a force for good. However, there is a dark side and many parents are rightly anxious about the dangers to their children that may be lurking within,” said committee chairman John Whittingdale.
“In particular, there needs to be an independent body comprised of industry representatives and lay members to police self-regulation and to give consumers confidence. This model works well in other industries,” Whittingdale said.
The MPs also called for a rethink on how best to classify video games – but there is disagreement over who should run the new ratings system.
The committee suggested it should be the same body which gives age ratings to films, the British Board of Film Classification.