Petition calls on advertisers from Clientele Life, FNB, Vodacom and Checkers to Telkom and Chicken Licken to boycott and stop advertising on the SABC.

A Petition has started calling on advertisers to boycott the SABC and to stop advertising on the South African public broadcaster due to the SABC's unwillingness to end the censorship of SABC TV News regarding the broadcast of public protests.

The petition, started on the community advocacy organisation Amandla.mobi's website, is asking advertisers to stop advertising on the SABC until its ends SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng's censorship decree, and is asking the South African public to let advertisers know that they will no longer buy their products and services if they continue to advertise on the SABC.

The online petition asks that Clientele Life, Chicken Licken, FNB, Vodacom, Carling Black Label, Checkers, Telkom boycott the SABC and stop advertising on the SABC.

"More and more organisations and political parties including the ANC, agree with us that what is happening at the SABC is wrong. But the situation at the SABC is deteriorating rapidly, with journalists facing suspension and more and more evidence surfacing of censorship. This calls for a different approach," says the petition.

"We know the SABC makes much of its revenue from advertising, so together with our allies from the SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa, let's call on some of the SABC's largest advertisers - Clientele, Chicken Licken, FNB, Vodacom, Carling Black Label, Checkers, Telkom and others - to pause their advertising with our SABC until this censorship is brought to and end".

The South African broadcasting regulator, Icasa, on Monday ruled that the SABC's censorship of SABC TV News is wrong and needs to be stopped immediately, retroactively to 26 May.

The SABC's controversial chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng said the SABC will not listen to Icasa, that "no-one is going to tell us what to do", and that the SABC will fight the ruling to the Constitutional Court.

Advertising Standards Authority orders FNB to 'un-Steve' its misguided and stereotyping 'un-Steve' TV and radio commercials.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered First National Bank (FNB) to "un-Steve" and immediately stop its misguided and stereotyping "un-Steve" TV and radio commercials in which the bank used the name "Steve" to humiliate and denote people who are apparently not as good as the rest.

It's the second big advertising and marketing trash campaign from FNB getting flack from the public after 2013's "Can you Help" commercials which FNB first staunchly defended and then quietly and quickly removed.

After several complaints to FNB and the ASA, and several complaints from people named Steven and Stephen, FNB had the audacity to tell them in an "open letter" that "in the last few years the name Steve has come to represent a certain type of person".

Yet its something FNB neglect to say it grasped out of thin air and invented.

FNB stereotyped the name "Steve" calling them people with "blockages", "who need help" and who are "too afraid to switch and try new things" and who "struggle".

Complaintants said that FNB's distateful commercials was "insulting to any person named Steve as it portrays such people as idiots, boring and dull" and that it could lead to children with the name Steve being bullied.

FNB said that that it not the bank's problem and that it can't be blamed for bullying.

The ASA has now ruled that FNB must withdraw its "Steve" commercials.

"The potential harm in the current matter lies in the possibility that children could interpret the advertising to effectively condone ridiculing anybody named Steve merely because of their name," says the ASA.