Keep teens safe online during lockdown

‘‘incredible . . . remarkably engaging, interesting, intense. I suspected it would be interesting, I had no idea how interesting when I got into it’’.

It’s also one that’s constantly changing. The sheer volume of content available on streaming services and social media platforms is already overwhelming, but objectionable material can come from anywhere.

Shanks has ruled on drug-taking cartoon characters on the side of a rental campervan, and on images printed on a drink can.

Often, though, things come to his attention from a little closer to home.

‘‘When I started in this role, my son mentioned something to me, something he’d noticed people talking about . . . in his class. He raised it with me

. . . I came to work thinking, ‘I must have a look into that thing’ [and] we had a media call about it later that day.’’

That’s happened three times now, and it made Shanks realise that restricting harmful content from children is the most important part of his job.

‘‘Some of the most horrific stuff I have viewed has not been referred to me by the police or enforcement agencies. I’ve been directed there by talking to younger people. Yes, we’re seeing horrific, impactful stuff, but you know what, that is the reality for young people today.

‘‘For me, every step towards improving things for them, building a better system for them, and for the future, is just critically important work.

‘‘That keeps you going.’’

Burnout would seem like a pretty high possibility for a censor. But it doesn’t happen. Turnover is incredibly low and jobs rarely become available.

‘‘I love my job,’’ says Kirsten, who started out reviewing paperwork and filling in on reception, before becoming a fulltime censor.

She’s been there 21 years now. Why?

‘‘No two days are the same. The publications are never the same. The issues we’re considering are never the same . . . they’re inventing new media all the time. They’re using it in ways we never thought of. It’s just a really exciting area to work in.’’

Her job has changed over the years. When she started out, DVDs hadn’t been invented. Crown work arrived as photo print-outs. CDs sometimes needed ratings. And 70 per cent of her job was watching porn.

Now, there’s less porn, and more movies and video games. Someone in their team is lucky enough to be working their way through Cyberpunk 2077, one of the year’s most hyped games that isn’t due for release until September. That’s a preview that would make most gamers drool.

Conflict over digital devices is going to rise while families are locked down during the coronavirus outbreak, says chief censor David Shanks.

‘‘The coming weeks will likely feature even more conflict than usual between children and young people and their parents about what they are watching, and how much they are watching,’’ says Shanks.

‘‘While in isolation, many people will be following media coverage of events closely – maybe too closely. Consumption of all kinds of digital media is likely to spike. Pornhub has reported huge increases in traffic from the most-affected countries.’’

Shanks says parents need to support their kids to help them avoid harmful media during the lockdown.

The Classification Office website has plenty of information, including how to talk with young people about the media they’re viewing, including pornography.

It includes advice about sharing and discussing content, encouraging them to think critically about what they watch, how to handle sensitive or complex issues and supporting them if they’re distressed by something they’ve seen.

‘‘There are significant challenges here, but they are manageable if people have the information they need,’’ says Shanks.

When porn DVDs do arrive in their office, they usually shrug their shoulders, grab one each and head to separate viewing rooms.

‘‘A lot of people think it’s a cool thing, ‘oh, you get to watch porn at work’. It’s some of the most mundane, boring stuff that we do,’’ Erica says. It gives the office some laughs, though. ‘‘There are great one-liners,’’ says Caitlin, who had to watch one recently called Game of Bones with the coverline pun: ‘‘Winter is coming.’’ ‘‘We gave her a treat,’’ jokes Kirsten. Clearly, censors have better work stories than almost everyone else, and those stories start before they even get the job.

When a potential new staff member wants to join the censorship team, they’re asked to join other applicants in a small viewing room up on the first floor of their central Wellington location.

They’ll sit down with everyone else, face forward and look at a TV screen.

‘‘And that,’’ says Erica, ‘‘is where you watch the porn.’’

Applicants are played a compilation of the kind of stuff they’ll have to view on the job.

It includes the suicide scene from 13 Reasons Why, several porn clips, scenes involving sexual violence and cruelty, and a misogynistic stand-up set by British comedian Jimmy Carr.

‘‘We give you an overview of the kind of material [you’ll have to watch]. Not the high end, not the banned end, but we also would show people some Crown work, just to enable them to self-select out,’’ Erica says.

‘‘We don’t want to hurt them. We don’t want to upset them.’’

But that job interview, she admits, is a great story to bring out at a party.

‘‘Not everyone can really say that your interview involved group-watching a porno.’’

Visit classificationoffice.govt.nz for more information.