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Why aren't BBC/ITV/C4 etc giving trigger warnings?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
During the news viewers are given many different warnings - of flashing lights, of disturbing images etc, but why are they not giving out trigger warnings especially when reporting thing to do with violence -in particular, sexual violence? I was watching a BBC news report about the savile case - and most of time, they are very matter of fact and don't go into the details of what he did to people. But on this report they did, they interviewed one of his victims where he was attacked in the 1960s, and he gave (albeit slightly vague) details of what Savile did to him. That was enough to trigger me, and I tried to make a complaint (but the bbc never have made it easy for people to do so!).
But should all TV programs be made by law to give out warnings like they do for flashing lights and disturbing images?
But should all TV programs be made by law to give out warnings like they do for flashing lights and disturbing images?
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I hate the news for stuff like that, I don't watch it anymore, but say I'm with someone else who's watching it I notice they never give warnings.
A lot of the TV programmes I watch too, they don't always give warnings and sometimes I'm like 'uh, great'.
I can understand it wouldn't be easy to complain to the BBC, good for you for trying though!
:yes: a lot of programmes do have warnings like that.
I'm not saying we should wrap everyone in cotton wool but if the warnings had a little more consistency those affected would be able to make better choices.
As others have mentioned, you can't protect everyone from everything. I personally don't want to have to sit through a prescribed "warning" text that someone reads before every programme just because its content might upset someone. The usefulness of such warnings is also highly debateable if it would become so commonplace that folk would just ignore it. As a case in point, consider how much attention is giving to pre-flight safety announcements.
I admit I'm inclined to agree.
I normally don't use the slippery slope argument but it's such a subtle one with triggers; they're deeply personal. It's the same with triggers on the internet - if you just put "trigger warning" that's totally useless, much more useful to make it very clear what you're taking about and then people can see the triggers coming (you could also include a warning but really if it's clear what will be discussed it might not be necessary)
Don't sound so reluctant!
I'm not sure it's even a slippery slope argument. The warnings that are currently in place - on the news for example - aren't there to mitigate people who are "triggered"; warnings are in place to give fair notice of strong content coming up. If you start taking being "triggered" explicitly into account when giving warnings then the myriad of triggers people suffer from would make virtually everything a potential trigger and, as Mist says, render warnings completely useless.
One of my major triggers is fire, it'd be ridiculous of me to expect every programme containing fire to come with a warning. I'm also triggered by sexual abuse etc and even though it's a more common content to be upset by I think it's down to the viewer to make sensible choices in what they watch.
Agreed. There's a medical programme I used to watch on TV and it would have a warning about how this programmes contain graphic content. I would have been somewhat surprised if the programme didn't contain graphic content.
I don't watch the news at all. I find it too upsetting and triggering for various reasons.
*It is quite late and night and I'm not sure this is going to make sense*
Surely then, if they gave an accurate warning of what is coming up, would that then not be just being given the news. At which point we would have to have triggered warnings about the trigger warnings (thinking back to your original post).
That's why I read it online. Can pick and choose the stories you feel comfortable reading.