Important:

This petition was submitted during the 2010-2015 parliament

Rejected petition Review BBC guidelines regarding staff ability to incite violence/hatred as long as they apologise afterwards

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The Government should force the BBC to revise their guidelines to prevent their staff from making comments designed to incite violence or hatred towards individuals and/or groups. The comments cannot be undone by making a simple apology afterwards, particularly if this is not the first time it has happened. The BBC seems to take an inconsistent approach depending on who makes the comments - Jeremy Clarkson should be treated in the same way as Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not responsible for.

This is a matter for the BBC.

It is a long-standing principle that the Government does not interfere in programme matters. It is important to maintain the principle of freedom of expression which political interference could undermine.

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.