New law forces YouTubers, gamers and vloggers to have content classified before publication

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NATIONAL NEWS & VIDEO - The Films and Publications Amendment Act was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in September this year.

It is not yet in effect and will only apply when Minister of Communications, Telecommunications and Postal Services, Stella Ndabeni Abrahams, promulgates it.

The act has been labelled “censorship law” by online personalities in South Africa – understandably so. It requires prospective distributors of various forms of content to submit their work to the Films and Publications Board (FPB) for classification prior to sharing it.

“Classification” is the process where the FPB considers footage and indicates whether it should have an age restriction and whether viewers should be warned of, for example, scenes with strong language, violence, nudity or sex.

Click here for the FPB’s classification guidelines

This rule will apply to:

Films: this includes not only movies, but also any sequence of images that looks like a moving picture;
Videos: based on the definition of ‘films,’ all video material;
PC games and video games.

If you want to post a video onto the web or any social media platform, it will first have to be classified.

Whereas movies, videos, games and films must be presented for classification before they are distributed, the classification of publications for purposes of distribution as defined in the act is not a prerequisite.

The requirements when dealing with “publications” will be discussed in next week’s Clicklaw. This will be followed by discussions on how this affects the media and advertising industries.

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