The Humble Petition of the organising group of the pupils of Dame Allan’s School, namely Diane Rasul, Ria Barber, Virginia Barbour and Amarah Latif.
Sheweth that the Petitioners are campaigning to abolish the use of Photoshop and other image altering software programs from use on images of people.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will urge the Government to actively encourage regulators to put an end to the use of these programs which enable the spread of an unrealistic body image.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.—[Presented by Chi Onwurah, Official Report, 20 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 1088.]
[P001464]
Observations from the Secretary of State for Education:
The Government work to support positive and diverse representations of people. The Government ran the Body Confidence Campaign from 2010-2015, which aimed to raise awareness and understanding of body image and challenge the cultural norms and gender stereotypes that so often undermine people’s confidence and abilities. The Government Equalities Office continues to promote and support positive and diverse representations of all people, to celebrate good practice in industry where it is demonstrated, and works closely with the advertising and education sectors to produce resources that improve media literacy so that young people can become more informed and resilient consumers of media content.
This Government uphold the core principle of freedom of expression, recognising the invaluable role a free press plays in our cultural and democratic life. The Government do not interfere with what the press does and does not publish, as long as the press abides by the law of the land. However, this does not mean that newspapers can publish anything with impunity. We have introduced a new system of independent press self-regulation that protects press freedom while offering real redress when mistakes are made. Both the industry and the Government agree that independent self-regulation of the press is the way forward.
Photoshop and image altering software is used widely across advertising, marketing and other industries. While this can sometimes distort reality and promote unrealistic and unattainable ideals of beauty and perfection there are many legitimate creative reasons for altering images of people. Abolishing image altering software infringes on the freedom of the press and limits creative and artistic freedoms. Such acute action does not take into account the many circumstances where images of people are altered in any number of ways to promote diverse ideas or points of view and to create art and artistic representations that include images of people. It is not possible to monitor image manipulation carried out by individuals who create art, web pages or publications across many media, both digital and print.
We believe the most effective action to challenge limited, sexist or stereotyped portrayals of people in media is led by consumer pressure rather than banning editorial content. We have seen evidence that the best way to encourage effective and lasting change is to encourage industry to change from within, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because listening to what the public wants and engaging with consumers is good for business.