To be pissed off about having images censored because 'someone might get upset'

[VestibuleVirgin]

Yesterday, the TV and social media were showing film and photographs of the bolting horses in London. Clearly they were terrified, and the grey had an obvious injury, with blood on its chest and legs.
This morning, GMB has blurred the grey's chest area to preserve sensibilities.
I am sick of these holier than thou people thinking they can arbitrate which images, previously freely available, they deem unsuitable.
This top-down censorship, particularly by tv companies, is not in the name of decency, just some pathetic attempt to prove that they can dictate life because they understand what the 'community' wants.

This isn't censorship it's good taste.

Yes, this sums it up.

This was my thinking. ITV weighed up the amount of likely complaints re: censoring/not censoring and went with censoring.

Probably based on past experience.

Do people not know about The Watershed on uk TV ?

Exactly - and we live in a free country, with free media so people can choose between a large range of different sources for their news. Sky, BBC, GB News, they will all have different editorial remits and therefore tones.

It’s genuinely concerning that people don’t understand the difference between censorship and editorial decision-making.

How does it add to the story to see a blood soaked horse? It was pre-watershed.

@HoneyButterPopcorn "We saw a trigger warning on Thomas the Tank Engine on tv the other day."

£10 to charity if you can prove this.

I was surprised to see the censored images, particularly as quite a few of the people who witnessed the horses running through the streets reported that it didn't look like blood- it looked like red paint.

A cynic would say that by censoring the images, further conversation on that seems to be bring blocked.

‘Top down censorship’? What other kind is there?
They made a decision, you disagree with it, others might not. Not sure there is any more to be said.

I have experience of galloping horses and certainly would want to try and catch them in a busy London street.

Why do you think your opinion is more worthy than anyone else’s? I haven’t looked at any of the images because I was able to choose not to so quite happy they were blurred out the news.

You say cynic I say stupid

You need to get off your high horse, no pun intended!! No one is 'dictating what you see'. I don't watch GMB but know it's breakfast tv so watched at a time when children will be present. Those images were upsetting to see yesterday so they would've been censored to not upset children this morning. Thought that would be obvious!

BBC Radio 4 do something similar all the time, especially with The Archers. "If you have been affected by issues raised in this episode......."

Yawn!

Oh yes I imagine the recent domestic storyline that was in the Archers and a warning is a total yawnfest I bet they had the audacity to provide a few contact numbers!

I disagree, OP. It isn't as if the broadcasters were hiding a critical aspect of the story. I don't want to see gruesome images on TV.

There is nothing odd about it at all. Even ‘highly trained’ horses can get spooked. If it was something that happened extremely quickly and unexpected then horses can be easily spooked and no amount of training can prepare them for it. That’s like teaching a human to overcome natural phobias but if someone unexpectedly sneaks up behind them, springs up and shouts ‘boo’ then it would be a knee jerk reaction to jump and be scared for a split second.
All training the horses does is get them used to as many scenarios as possible where they could possibly be spooked, however, no horse is too highly trained to not be spooked.

I think more should be censored. I find the news far too intrusive recently. Not just images but content. There was a story about a poor girl who had been raped in the sea a few weeks ago. That's all the story needed to say but it went into all the details about where she had been touched. It read like the author was almost getting off on it and it was completely unnecessary to report.

Yes you are being unreasonable.
It's the daytime. Kids might be watching the TV.
Of course you can't show graphic wound images don't be ridiculous.

There is an argument for pictures to be uncensored- people can’t truly imagine the real carnage and how people actually get injured for - example in Gaza, unless they actually see it. If people are protected from the gore, can they form an accurate opinion of what is really happening?

YABU

I don’t like seeing kids or animals covered in blood.

I watch murder documentaries and watch autopsies but seeing a frightened horse covered in blood was still an upsetting thing to see.

Why would you want to see that?

Apparently there was a sudden and dramatic noise from a building site. Any horse can spook. And I assume that some of them were being led-that is how troop horses are usually moved. So if a rider fell, the chances are he would drop the lead rope.

And of course you don't want blood stained horses on the TV that 4 year olds might be getting ready for school in front of!

Totally valid argument and I agree.

But the context in which it's shown is important. Online news pages? Yes. 10 o'clock news on TV? Yes (possibly with a warning for content). A morning current affairs programme? Probably not, which appears to have been the editorial decision here.

I think you have little clue as to what extent content providers have to comply with Ofcom requirements.

So blaming it on the channels as ‘Censorship by the vacuous and entitled masquerading as caring for the 'Great British public'’ is pretty ignorant.

Take it up with Ofcom.