The Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA) held a prize presentation ceremony today (July 4) for the "Healthy Student Video Contest 2026", the "'Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance' Slogan and Colouring Competition 2025-26" and the "Healthy Mobile App Sticker Design Competition". The event seeks to commend the winning students and teams for assisting in the promotion of the message of staying away from obscene and indecent information through multiple perspectives and innovative thinking. 
 
     A total of around 22 000 primary and secondary students participated in the three competitions which offered 60 major awards altogether. The adjudication panel comprised OFNAA representatives and industry professionals. Winners from 22 primary schools and 14 secondary schools (the list is set out in the Annex) will have their works uploaded to OFNAA's website for public viewing.
 
     Speaking at the prize presentation ceremony, the Assistant Director of Film, Newspaper and Article Administration, Mr Desmond Wu, said that while vast information is available on the online world, some of them may contain harmful content, such as videos and messages that promote violence and pornography, or distort values, which can profoundly affect the psychological development of young people. Sharing of harmful information on the Internet may even contravene the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance (Cap. 390) (COIAO). To protect children and young people from the influence of obscene and indecent materials online, OFNAA has been adopting a multi-pronged approach through actively organising a variety of publicity and public education activities in tandem with proper regulation, so as to enhance the understanding of the public, especially children and young people, of the COIAO, encourage them to stay away from harmful information, and assist them in developing the concept of the proper use of the Internet. 
 
     In addition to organising the abovementioned competitions, OFNAA continued to enhance its publicity and education efforts over the past year, including arranging about 100 roving educational drama performances in schools and 270 school talks. OFNAA also set up in-school mobile promotion stations in 20 primary and secondary schools. Through interactive games, case sharing, role playing, quiz contests and exhibitions conducted in a relaxing and interesting manner, the message of healthy use of the Internet was embedded into campuses. Furthermore, OFNAA organised talks, workshops and online seminars for parents, participated in teacher professional development seminars staged by the Education Bureau, and held eight roving exhibitions in shopping malls and government premises in various districts. These activities attracted a total of around 200 000 participants over the past year with a fruitful result.
 
     Apart from actively conducting publicity and public education, and taking enforcement actions, the Government is also implementing a series of administrative measures to enhance the representativeness of the Obscene Articles Tribunal (OAT). These measures include increasing the number of adjudicators participating in each hearing for classification of articles from four to six, with an equal number of male and female adjudicators, and raising the total number of adjudicators from about 750 to about 1 000. In addition, to enable those who wish to apply to become adjudicator, the Government has already incorporated the "e-ME" Form Filling feature of "iAM Smart" into the relevant electronic application form. Applicants can now use this feature to automatically fill in their personal particulars, thereby streamlining the application process. 
 
     While the Government encourages the public to actively participate in the work of the OAT, OFNAA will also continue to take forward diverse publicity and public education work, and collaborate with various stakeholders to enhance public awareness of the COIAO and promote the message of staying away from obscene and indecent content on the Internet.

Ends/Saturday, July 4, 2026
Issued at HKT 16:00

NNNN