The Broadcasting Commission has clearly seen that any undefended space left on the mass media landscape will be quickly filled, mostly by a preponderance of hateful, nasty, violent, and generally inappropriate content.

Among the last such undefended spaces, we believe, is the traditional media, the lone oasis in a jungle of information spawned by social media which often makes it difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction.

We’d like to believe that the commission’s latest directive on bad content is a recognition of this reality.

On Tuesday, the commission told broadcasters to immediately prevent the transmission of any recorded material that promotes and/or glorifies illegal activity. That covers audio or video recording; live song or speech promoting scamming, illegal use or abuse of drugs (for example molly), illegal or harmful use of guns or other offensive weapons, ‘jungle justice’, or any other form of illegal or criminal activity.

“The use of the public airwaves to broadcast songs that promote/glorify illegal activity could give the wrong impression that criminality is an accepted feature of Jamaican culture and society,” Mr Cordel Green, the executive director of the commission, explained.

We agree.

“It could also unwittingly lend support to moral disengagement and further normalise criminality among vulnerable and impressionable youth, and the young adult demographic,” he said.

Again, we agree.

We think the directive, in part, might have been a bit overcautious in also banning live editing and original edits (that is, edits by producer/label) as well as the use of near-sounding words as substitutes for offensive lyrics, expletives, or profanities. But we find it difficult to fault the Broadcasting Commission for moving to clean up the public airwaves, which is part of its remit, to protect especially the nation’s children and other impressionable minds not yet able to siphon out the garbage from some content.

On the plus side, the Internet has opened up a vast new array of opportunities, making ordinary people into both consumers and creators of content and giving rise to a global army of citizen journalists, Facebookers, Tweeters, bloggers, vloggers, and the like.

But with that has come terrible human behaviour which produces new forms of crime, hate speech, terrorism, cyberbullying, revenge porn, and malice. Some young people have been induced to commit suicide as a result. That is why platforms such Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have moved, in differing degrees, to ban such content.

Traditional media, for its part, is constrained to take information through a cleaning process — checking all the facts; verifying the source; ensuring balance, fair play; and the other elements of professional broadcasting.

Of course, there will be those who don’t want any form of censoring of any material whatsoever. But we believe that the silent majority of decent Jamaicans will welcome the commission’s directive.

Truth be told, those individuals who don’t find favour with the directive are not being deprived of the copious sources of murder music and other content advocating the ugly, dark side of humanity. The commission is merely saying keep them away from the public airwaves.

So we say to those who feel deprived by the commission’s directive, pick your choice.