re: #141 Eclectic Cyborg

More interesting news from across the pond:

The British royal family has given broadcasters in the UK a deadline of today to pick just one hour of footage they would like to keep for future use from the Queen’s funeral and the King’s proclamation ceremony, despite the fact that millions of people already saw it all livestreamed on several platforms, according to a new report from the Guardian. And since the UK lacks any constitutional protections for free speech equivalent to the First Amendment, broadcasters like the BBC, Sky News, and ITV seemingly have no choice but to comply.

The United Kingdom recently observed a full ten days of official mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8 at the age of 96. But British broadcasters are being told to compile just one hour from their non-stop coverage for any future broadcasts and submit that hour to the royal family for approval. Any use of footage beyond that one-hour would also need to be cleared with Buckingham Palace in the future.

Where does that leave online coverage, something you’d assume could live on the web forever? The royal family already had at least five short clips from the Queen’s memorial and funeral services at Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle purged from UK media websites, according to the Guardian, though longer streams still survive for those who know where to look. The BBC’s digital video repository, iPlayer, has just a few weeks left before those longer streams are purged.

News organizations that used the broadcast feed of the official ceremonies had to promise any social media clips would be “solemn and dignified,” as the Guardian phrases it, though it’s not clear what kind of written arrangements may exist with U.S. news outlets. Staff for the royal family even maintained a WhatsApp group with executives at British media outlets, letting the news organizations know in real time what clips were permissible for re-publishing during the Queen’s memorial service, according to the Guardian.

Apparently the Royals weren’t too thrilled with that clip of King Charles III demanding one of his servants remove a pen from a table he was at, among other things, going viral.

Good luck to them trying to drop that down the memory hole.