The question then remains of what to do about this. Many industries prefer to be self-regulating, and the computing and advertising industries are no exceptions. However, over the last decade and a half, the European Union has commissioned various reports and passed various resolutions concerning the depictions of women and men in advertisements. The latest of these, from the summer of 1997, is based on MEP Marlene Lenz's report, recommending the adoption of resolutions passed at the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference. The main problem with censorship, in respect to the debate here, is that it creates a situation where an industry is responding to sanctions which do nothing to address actual beliefs held.
Censorship can have the effect of simply hiding institutional sexism, for example.
Furthermore, where freedom of expression is stifled, freedom to critique, question and challenge is also stifled. This tends to focus the issue in a well-worn groove of xenophobia and prurience, playing into the polarized censorship debate, and ensuring that very little changes because the issue then becomes regarded as one of homogenizing national difference, which most member states resist. Our concern is with the global computing industry. In conclusion, we argue that the responsibility falls to all of us involved in computing to acknowledge the power of media images, and to decide what kind of industry we want to be a part of. We also discuss the respective roles of legislation and industry guidelines, and what these mean for arbitration.