Petition: Put Age Ratings on Music Videos

With a couple of kids at primary school, I'm fairly picky about which channels get blocked on our TV. Anything showing music videos is off air, along with the shopping channels and pornography. I've just signed this petition, which calls for age ratings to be applied to music videos whether sold in shops or online, something which is long overdue. Please consider signing it too.

Here's some of the wording, addressed to the Prime Minister:

I know that you care deeply about the sexualisation of women and girls in the media and are taking action to tackle this. Your commitment to introducing age-ratings for music videos sold in shops is very welcome. For consistency, I would urge you to extend age-ratings to music videos viewed online also, as recommended by a Government commissioned review, because most people now watch and share videos this way.

This is not about censorship as music videos shown on TV, video games, films and ads are all regulated or have age-ratings so that there is guidance on sexually explicit images, and many harmful images are removed altogether. This same principle should apply to music videos online, linked to filters, so that there is a trusted guide about content. Many online platforms including iTunes and Netflix already carry BBFC age-ratings and content advice.

I hope that you will listen to the voices of young women and make this change so that we can enjoy music videos without being bombarded by these harmful images.