BBC censors its own archives

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/the-bbc-quietly-censors-its-own-archives/

by temp8964 • 4 years ago

165 130 4 years ago

But the BBC is a de facto government agency — an agency for which all Britons who own televisions are forced by statute to pay — and, as a result, the material that it is modifying is effectively publicly owned.

This is a massive simplification which somewhat undermines the overall article. The government does not automatically own or have the copyright of the material broadcast by the BBC, definitely not in the strict IP sense. The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a government department. Furthermore, it generates revenue independently of the license fee, e.g. from sale of content overseas (and advertising on its .com site, as opposed to the .co.uk site we see in the UK).

I'm not saying that the BBC is right or wrong to modify it's historic content, just that the argument that the content is publicly owned is flawed.

gjsman-10002• 4 years ago

I don't care what the technical status of the BBC is. It is publicly funded and thus the public has an interest in ensuring history is not being rewritten.

ghusto2• 4 years ago

It is not "publicaly funded" in the same way that the roads or NHS are. I didn't pay a penny to the BBC the entire time I lived in the country because I never had a television. I still paid for the roads though, despite not having a car (yes, everyone actually pays for the roads, not just motorists).

So while I agree they shouldn't be doing this, I wouldn't use the "publically funded" argument. It muddies the waters and makes rebuke easier.

lwhi2• 4 years ago

I don't care what the technical status of the BBC is. It is publicly funded and thus the public has an interest in ensuring history is not being rewritten.

The organisation has a duty to serve all members of the UK.

Removing language which degrades segments of this audience, is clearly within its remit.

A dogged determinism to 'not rewrite history', is not.

I'm thankful you're not on the board.

mensetmanusman• 4 years ago

This reminds me of the adage that the winners write the history.

This has always been going on, it’s just now so easy to track. The funny thing about editing the past is that those living automatically win, so it isn’t much of a fight.

It seems people would rather edit the past than be offended. This behavior certainly fits well with our understanding of modern sensibilities.

h2odragon2• 4 years ago

its much easier to get people to go along with historically bad ideas if they've never been allowed to know how badly the previous incarnations have been for the world.

Other comment mentioned "Peter Pan," and the unsuitability of some of it for modern kids... Why aren't kids allowed to know that people once thought of things differently than we do now? We tell them "someone discovered the earth was round" even though thats arguable, but on this subject the fear of controversy mandates ignorance and silence?

I don't wanna teach my kid that, and didn't.

zimpenfish5• 4 years ago

We tell them "someone discovered the earth was round" even though thats arguable

It's arguable that "someone discovered the earth was round" or that "the earth is round"? Because I'm pretty sure that neither of those is actually arguable.

soniman• 4 years ago

When I would watch BBC Shakespeare productions and follow along with the text, I noticed BBC would change things like "O Jesu" to "O Lord" or change complicated medieval political terminology to "we are fighting for our rights against the king." If they'll do it to Shakespeare, they'll do it to Dr. Who.

flonkyflonk• 4 years ago

You can blame James I for that, not the BBC. Blasphemy was banned on the English stage in 1606 (the "Restraint of Players" act) and so later publications are usually expunged.

The BBC production could have been using a later edition (possibly based on the First Folio from 1623) which censors all the references to God and other blasphemy like "zounds", which is short for "God's wounds". You where almost certainly following along with an edition where the editor had restored the original published text from before the act was created.

gwbas1c• 4 years ago

I think it's important to keep an archive of unaltered content. But, given that much of this content is for entertainment, curation is important.

For example, when Disney Plus was new, I decided to watch Peter Pan with my kids. One was 4, and one wasn't even two. Curiously, I couldn't find Peter Pan in the "kids" mode, so I switched back to the adult mode and put it on. There was a very subtle warning about "outdated cultural references," but I didn't think much of it as I've seen Peter Pan a few times.

The Disney Plus version reintroduced "What Made the Red Man Red?", an extremely racist musical bit. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Made_the_Red_Man_Red%3F) In the past, this song was cut from the VHS and DVD version. (And I have vague memories of wondering why the lost boys returned to their tree dressed as Indians.) I had no idea that this was put back in the movie. My jaw dropped when the song came on. I was in so much shock that I didn't think to skip the scene.

Now, I have no problem preserving the uncut film, and making it generally available! But I also would prefer to show my young children the cut version of the film, and only show them racist material when they're old enough to understand why it's wrong. (After all, those who forget history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.)

nix233• 4 years ago

the lost boys returned to their tree dressed as Indians.

Watch your mouth young man! It's "dressed as native Americans".

krastanov9• 4 years ago

Maybe you are sarcastic or maybe you are trying to make a point in a light-hearted way, but while the word has plenty of history, "American Indian" is not a term particularly frowned upon. The museum in DC is called that way, and plenty of tribes prefer to have ownership over the term instead of it being unilaterally changed. I personally use the two interchangeably (which would probably make *someone* uncomfortable because of some connotation, and I will just be respectful and talk with that person).

Cycl0ps2• 4 years ago

https://youtu.be/kh88fVP2FWQ

aidenn0• 4 years ago

I have the Peter Pan DVD, and it definitely has that song. I wonder if there are regional differences there.

HideousKojima• 4 years ago

In the past, this song was cut from the VHS and DVD version.

Having grown up with Peter Pan on VHS I can assure you it was not cut from the US VHS release (at least not the ones in the white plastic clamshell cases that Disney VHS releases in the 80's/90's came in).

donatj• 4 years ago

That’s interesting that they provide it in its original form given the expansive censorship on the Disney+ platform as a whole.

grujicd2• 4 years ago

I watched that scene on yt, read the lyrics and even wiki page about that song. I can't understand why it's considered "extremely racist". It looks even cute. However I'm from Eastern Europe and probably miss some subtler context here. Or is this a case of overcorrection in US society? Excessive political correctness for past wrongdoings?

It's also quite funny when I saw that "black magic" is now considered racist. Guess what? It's also called "black magic" in Serbia since centuries ago, when noone here ever saw non-white man. Black in this context symbolizes darkness, and fear we feel in the dark. Not a skin color.

Btw. "roleplaying" cowboys and indians was a pupular childhood game in 80-ties here. Although Indians (I'm using this term since it's still the only one used around here) were typically portraited as bad guys in movies, they were as popular as cowboys in our games and many children wanted to be like them.

kerneloftruth• 4 years ago

It's similar overcompensating logic as people use to now rename git branches from 'master' to 'main' or whatever -- even though the concept of master was never anything about, or analogous to, slavery (i.e. there are no 'slave' branches -- it's just not the mental model, at all). Keep in mind that it's ostensibly smart people doing this.

Surprisingly (but maybe I missed a memo), the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), is in fact defined in terms of master and slave devices; but, I'm not aware of any movements to redefine it. The embedded systems world has not (yet) been cleansed and re-educated.

It's a new Puritan era.

codyb• 4 years ago

“Extremely racist” seemed odd to me too after watching it? Maybe outdated? It didn’t seem like the characters were interacting with the Native Americans in a racist way? They participated in their cultural traditions and seemed to have a fun time doing it?

tablespoon3• 4 years ago

I watched that scene on yt, read the lyrics and even wiki page about that song. I can't understand why it's considered "extremely racist". It looks even cute. However I'm from Eastern Europe and probably miss some subtler context here. Or is this a case of overcorrection in US society? Excessive political correctness for past wrongdoings?

It's "extremely racist" because the new requirement by certain ideological groups is that depictions of certain ethnic groups has to be done with extreme sensitivity, otherwise they're racist. It's an extremely high bar (e.g. I'm sure a huge amount of American material depicting the English or French would be considered racist if that standard were applied). The result seems to be a general expungement of Native American imagery in the US, even of some stuff created by Native Americans themselves.

It's also quite funny when I saw that "black magic" is now considered racist. Guess what? It's also called "black magic" in Serbia since centuries ago, when noone here ever saw non-white man. Black in this context symbolizes darkness, and fear we feel in the dark. Not a skin color.

First they go after the mockery, then they of after the innocent stereotypes, then they go after the things that just have a coincidental relation (because they can't stop).

Spellman• 4 years ago

Mostly because it reinforces/reinforces several stereotypes by associating the group as exotic and savage (less developed).

For example, making their skin literally red. Potentially artistic license, but also very odd considering that isn't a real skin color. Or stating that they were white to begin with and then were turned red, implying a type of deficiency/aberration from "normal" white. Plus the term "redskin" was used historically as a pejorative and associated with contempt, derision, condescension, or sentimental paeans to the noble savage. The stereotype of huge noses also is frowned upon since it was used to make claims of their savagery and brutishness unlike the civilized Europeans. (See also stereotyping Jews as having big noses)

Similarly, the song implies that the entire language is non-sensical words instead of actually being a full language. This is probably the biggest issue. The tribes actually had a full language for communication, not just a bunch of grunts.

It also takes something that would have very specific and special meaning, a war dance, and turns it into a party dance.

The sexism isn't great either. Forcing Wendy to be the aid since she's a girl instead of letting her join in the fun.

zimpenfish5• 4 years ago

It's also quite funny when I saw that "black magic" is now considered racist.

Do you have a handy link for that? Google cannot find anything useful for me right now that isn't just some people on Quora...

parineum4• 4 years ago

... Indians (I'm using this term since it's still the only one used around here)

Many of the tribes still in existence today refer to themselves, in English, as "Indian" or "American Indian" (and many Native American) but most just use their actual tribe name. "Native American" is a weird term to be the "PC" term as it's very Euro-centric. I think the outrage culture's issue over the term "Indian" is a lot more being offended on other's behalf than the parties themselves being offended. At the very least, they're grouping together a lot of different tribes who have different opinions and treating them as a monolith which, to my eyes, is the thing we shouldn't be doing.

xdennis2• 4 years ago

You're pearl clutching. The song does sound insensitive, but kids aren't going to start massacring Indians after hearing the song.

Take it as an opportunity to learn and raise antifragile kids.

orlovs2• 4 years ago

“Out of public view, the state-owned broadcaster has been altering old episodes of its shows to make them ‘suitable’ for modern listeners.“

I don’t get why grown ups need to be threated as kids. I am doing same for little ones, but why for grownups. Times changes, what is or not ok changes. In that case maybe adding some context commentary would be fine for those who dont know history. But erasing it is not cool

Consultant32452• 4 years ago

The beauty of the internet is there's at least a chance for us to catch them erasing history. Before, if it wasn't mentioned on the 3 TV networks, no one would ever know.

pessimizer3• 4 years ago

It's important to erase it so people don't know how racist their parents/grandparents were.

orlovs2• 4 years ago

Did not get is it sarcasm or real thing. those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it

krastanov9• 4 years ago

What is the problem with editing a show for rebroadcast? If the archive is destroyed or inaccessible, that is certainly terrible. But seems perfectly normal to edit a show broadcast (the same way a modern version of a Shakespeare play is different than the original).

tpoacher3• 4 years ago

Depends on the broadcast.

If it's barney the dinosaur to make the dinosaur less pink, I don't care.

If it's stuff which was used to haul the country to war on Iraq, I do care.

krastanov9• 4 years ago

Well, good thing that it was the former, right? Which is what is being described in this article: editing entertainment programs for today's broadcast, not censoring the archive copy and definitely not touching newscasts.

asow922• 4 years ago

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

asow922• 4 years ago

Why would someone downvote this?

hdjjhhvvhga• 4 years ago

Fortunately I have all Monty Python DVDs, so BBC can not censor my copies. The show was already offending back then, but today it is beyond measure.

onionisafruit• 4 years ago

Just wait until the Spanish Inquisition shows up and demands to swap out your dvds.

jjgreen• 4 years ago

I wasn't expecting that ...

krastanov9• 4 years ago

I very much doubt that it would ever be difficult to access the archive copies. It is unsurprising that a new broadcast is edited, but this is no more censorship than editing Shakespeare for modern audience is. If you are curious what the original was (and you should always be, no matter how old the media is), you can always check out the archive (which are becoming more and more easy to access, not more difficult as this article is implying).

tpoacher3• 4 years ago

Nonsense. We were always at war with Oceania.

disruptalot• 4 years ago

Where is the evidence?

I think it's extremely important that mass media organisations are held accountable to what they publish, given their reach. As such I always wonder if there is a collection of revisions that major news articles have made, especially in this age that it's simply a page on a URL.

There is archive.org but has someone identified the noteworthy alterations?

ilikejam• 4 years ago

Editing shows for rebroadcast is not the same as censoring archives.

efitz2• 4 years ago

What the hell went wrong with the western world that a nontrivial number of people think that free speech is bad, censorship is good and it’s ok to rewrite history when it’s inconvenient or unpleasant?

krastanov9• 4 years ago

My read of the article gave me very different impression. No archives were actually censored. Entertainment programs were edited to fit the zeitgeist as has been done with theater plays for centuries and with TV for decades. If anything, today it is easier to access unaltered archives than ever. This hand-wringing is cheapening the word censorship and making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.

BuyMyBitcoins3• 4 years ago

” making real censorship more difficult to notice in the noise.”

Just about every debate about ‘censorship’ I’ve encountered ends up with people debating the meaning of the word itself. And, there is a sizable contingent of people asserting only the government can censor. It’s already too late.

edent5• 4 years ago

When do you think that wasn't the case?

The Family Shakespeare publication shows that was the case back in the 1800. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

an9n2• 4 years ago

Ah yes, the good old 'it's always been that way!' fallacy

an9n2• 4 years ago

Our politicians looked at China, realised they could simultaneously have totalitarianism and profit, and started constructing a Potemkin village called democracy behind which to hide its total destruction.

pessimizer3• 4 years ago

When the hell was this mythical past in the west where people weren't absolutely destroyed and jailed for things that they said, media wasn't bowdlerized and censored to hell, and history wasn't rewritten when it was convenient or unpleasant?

I'm old enough to remember when the only things that weren't censored were the racist and sexist bits.

efitz2• 4 years ago

For most of my Gen X life here in the US, the only censors of note were the far right, trying to ban porn and naughty words. We had the press and the ACLU that would scream bloody murder and fight like wolverines whenever censorship reared it’s head.

Now, a ridiculous number [1] of Americans support censorship. We have surveys showing most college kids want to ban “hate speech” and heterodoxy [2] (big problem- who gets to define “hate”?).

The ACLU is backing away from defending free speech; here’s a former director of the ACLU [3].

Journalists now regularly host intelligence community propagandists [4] and support “fact checking” and government mandated bans on “misinformation” [5]. Again, who decides? And not just who decides what the facts are, but who decides what facts to check? Who decides what is “misinformation“ and what are the consequences if the holders of this power are shown to have misjudged?

[1] https://jonathanturley.org/2021/08/20/the-new-censors-polls-...

[2] https://thompsoncenter.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/509...

[3] https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams...

[4] https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccab...

[5] https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation... and https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/9/journalists-iop...

notahacker4• 4 years ago

What went wrong with the Western world isn't so much the totally unchanged mainstream position that television companies can and should be able to cut away from or bleep content deemed "objectionable" or even mildly inappropriate for the audience as they have done since the beginning of broadcast media, but that certain groups only became interested in contesting this (by means of dubious analogies to constitutional speech protections) when the definition of "objectionable content" expanded to include casual racism.

pie_flavor2• 4 years ago

While this is very nearly true despite my disagreement with the framing, there is an important distinction between offensive graphical content, like porn or violence, and offensive intellectual content, like racism or sexism. That is what changed - they previously attempted to make sure you were not exposed to imagery they didn't like, now they attempt to make sure you're not exposed to ideas they don't like.

joshuajill• 4 years ago

Netflix does this also. I've noticed in a documentary, I believe it was "The Social Dilemma", which now includes comments about COVID-19 disinformation campaigns.

pseudalopex• 4 years ago

Books are revised. Publishers stop distributing old editions. Is this different?

edent5• 4 years ago

I've read through that article, and it doesn't seem to give any specific examples. The through-linked article has said that they removed some racist jokes and mentions of child abusers. And, much like in the comment, I'm like well... yeah.

Because it is so old, much of the material that the BBC has been altering is not available to purchase or download, nor broadly owned on physical media,

That's not true. The majority is available to download via either official or unofficial archives. Huge amounts of BBC material was released on cassette and CD.

If you watch a movie on an aeroplane, it will quite often be edited - both to remove excess sex and violence and - duh - mentions of plane crashes!

If you watch BBC shows syndicated in the USA, they'll have advert breaks edited in.

This is such a non-story.

nmstoker• 4 years ago

The distinction between excising content from the actual archive as compared to editing a version for broadcast is an important one. The former would be awful but the latter is reasonable, unless the broadcast is part of a series about past approaches to such matters (and is available with suitable warnings).

The whole thing should be a non-issue though now, because they have their own platform (iPlayer) with which they ought to be able to provide both versions in a user selectable manner (with necessary age checks if that's deemed necessary, as it is for certain content already on there). This gives the ideal compromise, as it doesn't rewrite history whilst ensuring that people who may be offended have an option suitable for them.

This leads into the other thing they should be pushing to achieve, which is to get much more of their archive accessible to UK license payers - clearly 100% would be a tall order but it's a good target.

r_hoods_ghost• 4 years ago

From reading the article it doesn't seem that the BBC is actually censoring its own archives. It's just choosing whether or not to rebroadcast certain episodes in their original form or omit them entirely. You can still access the originals, admittedly you may have to leave your computer and actually go to the archives themselves. This is... fine? Or is the demand that you must have access to absolutely everything all of the time?

VancouverMan• 4 years ago

Intentionally limiting the access of others to information, including by omission or by imposing artificial barriers, is still inherently censorship.

MarkusWandel• 4 years ago

Why can't the now-offensive stuff not just go behind a clickwall?

A big full-screen disclaimer. That this material no longer conforms to current standards, or was made by persons who are now considered bad. Continue at your own discretion.

Or even have a scrolly banner or watermark in the material itself to prevent it from being stripped of the disclaimer by others. But preserve the historical record.

NeoTar2• 4 years ago

Because for the most part these are actually broadcast, that is to say the archive that the BBC makes available have been sent out over TV or radio waves within the past few weeks.

It's not a matter of someone actively seeking out content on a webpage. Its a matter of, say, leaving the radio on in the background when you are cooking, and hearing content with outdated language and ideas.

denton-scratch2• 4 years ago

Isn't the whole point of an archive that it can't be altered? If you're allowed to alter it, then you aren't allowed to call it an "archive".

Mindwipe2• 4 years ago

The original archive isn't altered. If you want to go to the British Library in person or if you want to obtain an academic pass to the BBC archive you can still see the originals.

This article is about repeat airings.

friendlydog• 4 years ago

Should we expect the quote of George Orwell of "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. History has stopped." To be rewritten as "Everything is fine, trust the government."

NeoTar2• 4 years ago

As an example where I imagine this may have happened, in the early two-thousands I listened to a radio show (Brothers in Law) from the 1970's. It was in general a light-hearted comedy series starting Richard Briers - something people may know him from playing Tom in 'the Good Life' sitcom.

One episode of the show was particularly uncomfortable to listen to. It was an episode which featured an abused wife - beaten by her husband. I can't recall the full context of the episode, but basically it turned out that she was happy when her husband beat her - 'because it showed he loved her' (not a direct quote).

Whilst I agree this episode should be available in some form - it could be important to show some people's attitudes at the time towards domestic abuse, I think that it would be totally appropriate to remove it from the series if the series were being broadcast at tea-time, in a slot which would normally be a light-hearted comedy.

xdennis2• 4 years ago

Why would people want to listen to a historical show but not experience it as it was?

oh_sigh• 4 years ago

But this is just a single person's viewpoint. It's not like the BBC is taking the position that husbands who beat their wives actually love them. And in fact, you will find many abused women who, yes even in 2022, would say something like that.

Angostura• 4 years ago

This is a a strange article. I have no doubt that the 'archived' version is retained. However, yes if they are rebroadcasting some radio show from the 1950 for a contemporary entertainment, it's possible they will edit the content.

They don't repeat the black and white minstrel show from the 1970s at all. Shoud they? No.

shellac• 4 years ago

I have no doubt that the 'archived' version is retained.

Working in the preservation area, and being aware of what the BBC has lost over time, the title immediately had my interest. But this isn't a serious piece of journalism at all. The author doesn't make any attempt to verify the claim, and liberally decorates his piece with specious references to Orwell. He doesn't appear to know what an archive actually is, and thinks the BBC is 'state owned'.

It appears to serve little purpose than to ensure the header and footer are visually separated in a pleasing way.

mahogany• 4 years ago

This article is a pretty fascinating experiment showing how propaganda (or, to be more generous: click-bait) works in real time. Look at how many comments in this thread think that the archive versions were censored based on the misleading title. You could probably argue that the title is technically correct and that's what makes propaganda so effective.

It's unfortunate, because there is a nuanced discussion to be had here, about whether re-broadcasts should be modified (e.g. should we be okay with that if there is a disclaimer?), but the conversation gets derailed immediately because many people only read headlines. But of course, they know what they are doing, trying to get a rise. They could have easily used a more accurate, but boring, title such as "BBC re-broadcasts differ from archived versions."

buildsjets• 4 years ago

I wonder if they edited "The Dambusters". In the American release, Guy Gibson's little black dog's name was overdubbed as "Trigger." The BBC version always aired the original name, which was NOT "Trigger."

RickJWagner• 4 years ago

All this history-erasing is going to become so confusing that you'll need a cheat-sheet to decide if you want to be offended by something or not.

Somebody really said that? Hmmm, do they align with my politics or not? I'd better find out before deciding to be outraged or dismissive....

finite_jest• 4 years ago

The title is slightly misleading. It would be more accurate to change "its own archives" to "its reruns of the old shows".

That's bad enough though. They are making "woke cuts" [1] to old shows, lest their viewers question the universality of cultural norms by being exposed to an unfiltered version of the past.

Sure, the unaltered versions are probably accessible somewhere, but that doesn't make what they doing "not censorship" and ok. It would be like saying that the Hogwarts Library wasn't censored because you could find the banned books in the Restricted Section or elsewhere. At least Hogwarts had the defence of being something of a high school.

[1]: The Telegraph: BBC makes 'woke cuts' to archives, including Dad's Army https://archive.is/Y5nJw

BBC censors its own archives

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