BBC apologises over "geeks" news article

The BBC has removed a news article from the BBC Three website that branded people who had complained over an on-screen graphic "geeks."

The news article in question appeared after the corporation received many complaints over a new on-screen identifying graphic (DOG) on BBC Three. The graphic had been enlarged and made more opaque. In light of the number of complaints, the corporation at first made the graphic more transparent and today indicated that it would also be made smaller again.

However, complaints about the graphic were drowned out on our discussion forum and boards on the BBC's own website after the news article was posted. In its first draft, the BBC Three News article opened with the following paragraphs:

"In a world where international terrorism, indiscriminate murder and global poverty are facts of life, you might think people would have more important things to worry about than little logos in the top corner of their television screen.

"Alas, no.

"Those little graphics[...] are the cause of much consternation among certain viewers.

"Just don’t call them geeks who should get a life..."

After complaints started appearing, the news article was removed and then replaced with a version without references to terrorism and geeks. It has now been removed entirely.

Today, the BBC said that they "have decided to remove the story relating to the DOG debate in its entirety.

"The story on DOGS was intended to be light-hearted and to encourage discussion on the important issue of on-screen graphics. On reflection, we feel that we did not quite achieve the right tone and we apologise for the offence this has caused some of our users. For this reason we have decided to remove the story in its entirety from the website."

One user of our forum called the decision to reduce the size of the graphic and remove the news story a "victory", while another called the BBC's statement "a fair response."

Discussion continues on the forums.