Thread by @suchitrav

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), government regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications, and postal industries has imposed a £20,000 financial penalty on Worldview Media Network Limited, which operates @republic Bharat in the UK

The @republic aired an offensive episode of ‘Poochta Hai Bharat’ lives= on 6th September 2019 at 14:26. Ofcom ruled that the show contained un-contextualized and highly offensive hate speech .

Link to ofcom ruling: ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/…

Para 27: In summary, Ofcom’s Breach Decision found that an episode of the programme Poochta Hai
Bharat contained comments made by the host and some of his guests that amounted to hate
speech against Pakistani people and derogatory and abusive treatment of Pakistani people.

cont: The content was also potentially offensive and was not sufficiently justified by the context.

para 29: In the programme, the presenter (@republic TVs Arnab Goswami and some of his guests conveyed the view that all Pakistani people are terrorists, including that: “their scientists, doctors, their leaders, politicians all are
terrorists.

Cont: Even their sports people”; “every child is a terrorist over there. Every child is a terrorist. You are dealing with a terrorist entity”. One guest also described Pakistani scientists as “thieves”, while another described Pakistani people as “beggars”.

Cont: In the context of these criticisms, the presenter, addressing Pakistan and/or Pakistani people, said: “We make scientists, you make terrorists”.

👇🏾👇🏾Para 30:We considered these statements to be expressions of hatred based on intolerance of Pakistani
people based on their nationality alone,& that the broadcast of these statements spread, incited, promoted, & justified such intolerance towards Pakistani people among viewers

Para 31: A third guest, General Sinha said:

Also note that: @Republic "suggested that these statements were “figures of speech not intended to be taken literally, which Asian viewers would have understood clearly”.

Which Ofcom, disagreed.

What @republic said: statements were “figures of speech not intended to be taken literally..”
👇🏾What Ofcom ruled: statements made by a retired Gen Indian Army,"were an expression of hatred&desire to kill by a figure of authority..promoted hatred&intolerance towards Pakistani ppl

Para 35: "We considered that the overall tone of the discussion was provocative, comparing Pakistanis to donkeys & monkeys..noted that Pakistani contributors were repeatedly interrupted & afforded little time to make points which may potentially have provided challenge or context

👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾Para 36 clearly flags this as "repeated
instances of hate speech and abusive or derogatory treatment. It was, therefore, our Decision
that this content met Ofcom’s definition of “hate speech” 10 and that Rule 3.2 was breached."

Para 37: Ofcom flags that @republic also referred to Pakistani people as “terrorists” (even children), “beggars”,
“thieves”, “backward”, likened them to donkeys and referred to them as “Paki”, a racist term
that is highly offensive and unacceptable to a UK audience,

The real kicker in all this: @republic in a written response to Ofcom’s request for comments actually argued that the term “Paki” is simply a “casual reference” to the nationality of people from Pakistan and was therefore not offensive.

This is what @republic Bharat said in its response:
They acknowledge that they “failed in differentiating what content/speech may constitute hate speech” in accordance with the Code.

Second, they apologized like hell.
"broadcast a public apology 28013 times “to substantiate how apologetic we are”.
“particularly heavy rotation of apologies… demonstrates our efforts to convey a deep apology”

cont: "and that it regretted that the apology was not sufficiently specific and detailed to convey Ofcom’s concerns."

Third: they “fully accepted” Ofcom’s preliminary view to direct the Licensee to broadcast a statement of Ofcom’s findings.

Correction it was 280 times, 13 was the foot note

Fourth: They claim to have learned from the “misjudgments made in this programme” and reiterated the
measures it has put in place to avoid a repeat contravention.

The measure they put in place is the checks and balances a newsroom should have. But that means wrongly addressing Republic as a news show or a having a newsroom 🤷🏽‍♀️

Factors taken into account in determining the amount of a penalty

Decision