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Members of Mast Sanity have complained several times over the past 18 months about the content of several children's programs. The Saturday Show - Dani Behr drooling over a new phone which was then offered as a prize in a competition. Competition on the same show . Kids were told they could not write in only Text or phone. ShortChange - Tested phones on 10 year olds... Covered coolness ease of use ease of texting etc. No health warnings as per government guidelines. When a complaint was made about the content of the program and the age of the testers the reply to the right was Eventually received ...So the BBC don't think the Health issues relating to Children using phones is important. This is AGAINST government guidelines. Can we really expect the hoards of 10 year olds to log on to the very cool and interesting News online site to get the relative health info ... The BBC have a duty of care to our children and they are abusing this by advertising mobile phones on their channel. They would never dream of letting the 10 year olds discuss which brand of cigarettes are cool so why on earth do they consider this is okay Newsround - For discussing how cool the new picture phones will be. The kids were directed to the website for further info Where there was safety advice... on how to keep their phone safe from thieves... Who on earth is running CBBC - not someone who is very up to date with what's going on in the world or a parent - maybe its just Mr. Orange! CBBC Presenters - For discussing the mobile and 3G phones as if they are the best thing since sliced bread - Grow Up, Be responsible think of our children and for gods sake Get a life! XChange - CBBC again.... Name that Ring tone competition.. need we say more! Email from CBBC Thank you for your e-mail. I apologise for the delay in replying. We realise that our correspondents appreciate a quick response, and it is a matter of regret to us that you have had to wait so long on this occasion. I was sorry to learn that you feel we were promoting the use of mobile phones amongst children by reviewing them in a recent edition of 'Short Change'. We take our responsibilities towards our younger viewers very seriously indeed and I can assure you that this was not our intention. 'Short Change' fights for the rights of children as consumers. We are aware that many children do use mobile phones and from this standpoint, the programme makers would have been negligent if they did not devote time to issues pertinent to their viewers. I recognise that you would have liked more emphasis given to the possible health risks involved in using mobile phones, however, it is not always possible to cover every angle of a story in one programme owing to time constraints. You might be interested to know that we have covered the issue of mobile phones and children in some depth on BBC News Online. The following link will take you to a number of articles on this subject: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1413000/1413015.stm Regards , Bernadette Donaghy, BBC Information
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