Lithuania

[LT] Draft Amendment Law on the Protection of Minors against Detrimental Effect of Public Information

IRIS 2009-7:1/26

Jurgita Iešmantaitė

Radio and Television Commission of Lithuania

On 2 June 2009 the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) approved the Draft Amendment Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information in the first reading. The Draft Law seeks to enhance the protection of minors against the negative effect of public information by expanding the list of criteria on the restricted published information as well as by establishing a system of visual means (indexes) used for categorising TV programmes.

The Draft Law provides that public information which encourages gambling and participating in lotteries and other games, where the impression of easy winning is created; which sneers at people; which creates the impression of paranormal phenomena as real, is included in the category of public information, the publishing of which is restricted. In a case where the content of the programme corresponds to one or more criteria of the restricted information, it shall be broadcast using technical means that shall ensure the possibility of limiting the communication of such information to minors, for example, encoding, or categorising such programmes by using appropriate signalling and watershed hours as indicated by the Law. Programmes containing public information that is likely to cause detrimental effect to the development of minors shall be indicated by the signal related to the age of the viewers. Category „S”, which is appropriate only for adults, shall be broadcast from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.; programmes indexed “N-14” shall be broadcast from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and index “N-7” shall mean programmes that could cause a negative effect on minors under 7 years old.

The restrictions that are applied to the dissemination of public information that could cause detrimental effect to the development of minors are also applied to advertising, announcements, trademarks of goods and computer games. In addition, the Draft Law provides a provision that envisages that advertising of goods and services aimed at viewers from 18, 14 and 7 years old, shall not be broadcast in programmes dedicated to viewers younger than the mentioned age.

The Draft Law also envisages a new provision regarding Internet service providers, who from now on shall have to ensure the establishment and functioning of a filtering means for content that could cause detrimental effect on the development of minors. This Law should be adopted by the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) in its second reading in June 2009. Within six months from then the Government of the Republic of Lithuania shall adopt the Rules for Usage of Obligatory Filtering Means for Internet Access.