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On 22 September 2021, Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, published its latest research into people’s attitudes towards offensive language on scheduled TV and radio. The findings provide an insight into how audiences feel about language they might encounter in programmes they watch or listen to. A mixed-methods approach was adopted for this research. A quantitative strand captured spontaneous responses on the acceptability of 186 words, whereas the qualitative survey comprised 37 online discussion groups and 25 depth interviews involving participants from a variety of locations...

On 1 September 2021, Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, rejected a record of complaints about Piers Morgan’s comments on Good Morning Britain in the wake of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. Good Morning Britain (GMB) is a weekday morning news and discussion programme broadcast on ITV. On 8 March 2021, GMB was dominated by the interview between Oprah Winfrey and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex which had been broadcast overnight in the USA. Excerpts from the interview had been made publicly available ahead of its full broadcast in the UK that...

The Dyson Report ("the Report") published on 14 May 2021 held that the BBC fell short of its high standards of integrity and transparency by failing to mention to the public its investigation in 1995 and 1996 into the shortcomings of Martin Bashir’s ("Bashir") Panorama interview with HRH Princess of Wales (HRH). Also, Tony Hall (now Lord Hall), then the BBC’s Managing Director of News and Current Affairs, could not have concluded from the BBC’s investigation at the time that Bashir, who had secured the interview, was an honest and honourable man. Panorama...

Ofcom determined that Republic Bharat’s current affairs discussion programme had breached Rules 3.3 and 2.3 of the Broadcasting Code by allowing its presenter and some of the guests to make statements that amounted to derogatory and abusive treatment of Pakistani people. Further, the content was potentially offensive and not sufficiently justified by the context. Republic Bharat is a satellite TV channel, broadcasting mainly in the UK, and predominantly in Hindi. The station’s Ofcom licence is held by Worldview Media Network Limited (WM). Rule 3.3 of the Code states: "Material...

On 25 May 2021 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its long awaited judgment on bulk interception of personal data and mass surveillance by security and intelligence services in the case of Big Brother Watch and others v. the United Kingdom. After its Chamber judgment of 13 September 2018 (IRIS 2018-10/1) the case was referred to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR. The Grand Chamber judgment elaborates a general framework of principles regarding bulk interception and confirms that the UK regime of interception of communications not only violates the privacy rights...