I guess I never really thought about it before, but the BBC’s role as a public broadcaster means that it feels that its blog content is liable to the same strict guidelines that are imposed on its TV and radio channels.

This manifested itself by the temporarily freezing of comment submissions on its political blogs during today’s European Parliamentary elections in the UK:

The following section of the BBC’s 2009 European Election Broadcasting Guidelines focuses on all online content:

4.1 BBC Online

The same guidelines as those for programmes will apply to BBC Editorial content on all bbc.co.uk sites. These will apply to audio and video content as well as text content, e.g. blogs, podcasts and downloads.

With user generated content, we will not seek to achieve artificial balance by distorting the weight of opinion, but all sites prompting debate on the election will be actively hosted and properly moderated to encourage a wide range of views. Sites which do not usually engage in political issues should seek advice from the Chief Adviser, Politics, before doing so.

There is no certain solution to the problem of organised lobbying. However, all sites will be alert to the danger of distortion caused by organised campaigning and the bbc.co.uk escalation strategy will be activated immediately if necessary. For example, it may be necessary to put a board into premoderation or read-only mode.

There will be no online votes attempting to quantify support for a party, politician or policy issue during the election period.

Non news websites will direct users who want to discuss the election in forums, message boards and blog comments, to a handful of specific sites which will be premoderated or postmoderated within an hour of being published.

Journalists and moderators will have to make fine judgements between remarks that constitute robust debate and personal abuse. The general rule of thumb should be if we would not broadcast it on radio or TV, it should not be online. Filters for harm and offence and personal abuse will operate as usual, but they should not be relied on as a substitute for effective moderation.

BBC News Online and Regional sites will list links to all available party sites, provided that it does not give strong grounds for concern that this breaches the BBC harm and offence guidelines or the law e.g. defamation or incitement to racial hatred.

News Online will not link to the sites of individual candidates, unless there is a very strong editorial justification on news grounds and then only for a limited period (e.g. a big row because major player publishes policy on his/her website which contradicts manifesto on their party’s website).

Any speeches which are carried in full will be selected on news value, bearing in mind the need for balance between the parties.

Wow. That’s pretty tight, I’d say. Few could dispute that sites like Guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk are some of the Beeb’s biggest online rivals in the UK but as they have newspaper status, they are not bound by the same shackles as our Great British Broadcasting Corporation.

Surely one of the fundamental pillars of blogging is the empowerment of democracy (albeit moderated) through commenting?

What are your thoughts?

Love to hear ‘em….

Or just leave your X in the comments below.