32
Reply:
Mr President,
The Government is studying the feasibility of possible measures which may be taken to regulate obscene and indecent materials on the Internet. It has not yet reached any conclusions, including whether or not monitoring should be introduced.
End
Policy on interactive multimedia services
Following is a question by the Hon Miriam Lau and a written reply by the Replied by the Secretary for Recreation and Culture, Mr T H Chau, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
It was learnt that Hongkong Telecom revealed early last year that it was planning to launch video-on-demand services in July this year (this has now been postponed to mid-1997). However, it was not until February this year that the Government released the consultation paper on video-on-demand programmes as well as other multimedia services, which included a proposal on how to regulate such services. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
(b)
why the proposed regulatory measures were made known to investors at such a late stage, and whether the delay was due to the Government's lack of a comprehensive policy on interactive multimedia services; and
whether it will, in the long run, draw a distinction between television programmes and other on-line screen-based multimedia services, so that a fair and comprehensive package of regulatory measures can be formulated for various multimedia services?
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