censorship

Censorship is examining a product and deciding whether it is appropriate for universal display. It exists to create a safe industry regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, anything. It also protects people from content they shouldn't be exposed to and so that people won't copycat crimes.

The most common form of censorship is removing offensive or crude content from songs, films, music videos or altering it with something else, for example radio edit versions of songs.

It often is costly to re-edit a video or change lyrics and this is more popular with certain genres containing more swear words or controversial lyrics, for example rap, hip hop and r&b.

Explicit content- imagery in videos that is unsuitable for anyone under 18, including performances, concepts or narratives. Common examples of this is nudity or erotic references, graphic violence, drug abuse, unlawful behaviour. Eminem has been called out for controversial topics such as Michael Jackson's child abuse allegations. 

Explicit lyrics- words or phrases that are inappropriate for the public, including sex, sexual references or frequent curse words not suitable for under 18 year olds. We have all become more inert to explicit lyrics in recent years so it is not always easy to establish what should be censored but in general, a few bad words are acceptable, in the right context. A major explicit lyrics situation was "Blurred Lines" because it promoted rape and objectification.

Advantages of censorship- Helps protect public, prevents upset audiences therefore law cases, prevents children from being "corrupted", helps guide audience's choices 

Disadvantages- Controls people's choices, freedom of speech issues, not always effective, promotes dictatorship

The record labels submit to the BBFC any music video by their artists for release online which they would expect to receive at least a 12 rating.  

The BBFC then classifies each video, watching it through in its entirety and then assigning an age rating and bespoke content advice (or example, strong language, sex references or sexualised nudity) using BBFC's published Classification Guidelines.