EBAY PULLS FOOTY HOOLIGAN VIDS - OR DOES IT?

31-10-2006

Auction website ebay claims it has removed violent football hooligan videos from sale after a Stirrer campaign reached parliament yesterday - although curiously, our research shows that there are just as many sellers this week as last week.

Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood raised an Early Day Motion in the Commonson Monday,after learning that DVD's were being floggedfeaturing footage of - among other things - a violent scrap between Baggies and Villa supporters a couple of years ago at the Uplands pub in Handsworth.

Other West Midlands Labour MP's including Tom Watson, John Spellar and Sion Simon joined him in calling for their sale to be withdrawn.

The campaign - kicked off last week in the Stirrer's regular Thursday column in the Birmingham Mail - has since been followed up by Radio Five Live and the BBC's local news website.

Ebay, which initially failed to comment, has finally been stung into a reaction, and sent us this statement.

“eBayhas policies in place to prohibititems that encourage illegal activity and also has a specificOffensive Materials Policy.Because eBaydoes not take possession of any of the goods which are sold on the site, it is not possible to review or pre-approve the content of DVD's sold on the site.

“Clearly, we do not wish to ban legitimate documentaries ormotion picturessimply because they may contain scenes of violence. However, content that violates our Offensive Materials policy will be removed.

"eBay has already removed a number of listings and is reviewing a number of other reported violations. eBay employs over 2,000 people in customer support and safety, and has a dedicated police liason officer, all of whom work closely with the authorities to keep the site safe for our users.”

This all sounds eminently reasonable, except for the fact that last week, there were 35 sellers of football hooligan DVD's on the site; and the last time we looked there were still 35. So how many sellers have ebay actually removed?