Kids and porn: the issue’s not going away
Kids and porn – it’s an issue that’s not going away. The latest contribution to the debate came from the culture media and sport committee.
Firstly, let’s make a clear distinction (as some politicians seem willfully incapable of doing) between images of child sexual abuse and legal, adult porn. Anyone with a good oversight of technology (again, that clearly doesn’t include some of our MPs) knows that “child porn” is pretty much the only topic on which almost all internet users concur: even cyber-criminals who readily engage in virus writing, credit card fraud and online scamming refuse to deal in child sexual abuse, no matter how great the potential profits.
In terms of legal, adult porn, the committee calls on pornographic websites to do more to prevent children accessing the site. If that means age verification, then it generally takes one of two forms: asking site visitors whether they’re old enough to legally access the content, or asking for a credit card to confirm this. The former is pointless (how many lusty 13-year-olds are going to answer truthfully?) and the latter looks like the kind of restraint of trade that would fall foul of European rules, since it restricts access to pornography to credit card holders.
Making 65-year-old legislation apply to the internet
The committee’s other thought is that the obscene publications act can be used to prosecute pornographic sites that don’t do enough to prevent children accessing their content. It’s a nifty idea, but making a 65-year-old piece of legislation apply to the internet is tricky.
Firstly: the test of obscenity is whether it “tends to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.”
That test looked a lot different in 1959 than it does today, even when applied to children. (The first topless Page 3 model only appeared in The Sun in the 1970s, for example, and in 1959 Zoo magazine’s recent “Top Heavy Honies” issue would probably have been on the wrong side of the test).
Secondly: as I understand it, in order to prosecute you’d need to prove that “publication” took place in the UK. That’s not easy when you have a pornographic website that may be hosted on a server farm in Iceland, administered by a team in Ukraine, under the aegis of a company headquartered in Los Angeles.
Thirdly: even if you can prove publication took place in the UK (i.e. when it appeared on a British user’s screen), the alleged offenders may very well not be based in the UK. You have to find them, and then convince local law enforcement to arrest them, and that’s presuming the country in which they’re located has some kind of judicial agreement with the UK. . (That said, the world’s largest publisher of porn, Mindgeek, is headquartered in Luxembourg).
People around the world are creating bespoke pornography
Needless to say, in a piece of legislation that talks about 16mm film, the obscene publications act doesn’t contain a lot of guidance on the above.
The other option, of course, is to prosecute the internet service providers on the basis that by making porn available to your kids, they are in fact “publishing” it. That would have disastrous repercussions for the co-operation government relies on from ISPs, not just on pornography, but a whole range of issues.
And of course, none of this tackles the growth area in online sex: webcams. Right now thousands of people around the world are creating bespoke pornography. One of the largest webcam providers, Duodecad, is again based in Luxembourg. Are they the publishers? Or merely the platform on which the webcams are connected? And furthermore, how would law enforcement gather evidence of the obscenity of a publication — they’d need to monitor hundreds of webcam streams 24 hours a day.
Parents hoping for a speedy, government-led solution are in for a disappointment. But there four things you can do right now to address the issue of your children seeing online porn:
1. SWITCH ON PARENTAL CONTROLS
All the major ISPs now have content filtering systems — contact them and they should be able to talk you through it. If not, switch providers to someone who can. Mobile networks should have content filtering in place by default, but it’s worth checking they’re switched on your child’s phone.
2. CONSIDER SWITCHING OFF WIFI IN THE HOME
If children are able to access the internet in private spaces they may be tempted to look at porn — and they’ll be sure to cover their tracks afterwards.
If they have to physically plug in, in a shared space, to access the web they’ll stay away from porn. Expect an argument: but ultimately, you pay the internet bill, so you get to decide the rules.
3. TALK TO YOUR KIDS
None of the above will prevent your children accessing porn — they’ll use public wifi, use their friends’ phones, etc.
The age at which the conversation happens is of course a difficult and personal decision, but the key is to work out what “harm” you wish to address: are you worried your kids will be upset by the images? That they’ll develop warped views of sex? That they’ll come to objectify women? Knowing what you want to say in advance will make an awkward conversation easier.
4. BE AN INFORMED CONSUMER
Saying someone watches “porn” is like saying they eat “food”. Not all porn is equal: some of it, while legal, is vile, misogynistic and exploitative. Some of it is simply a video version of page 3. Pornographic websites have capitalised on our embarrassed failure to distinguish, and have lumped all porn together, creating a moral equivalence.
Deeper and more intelligent thought about our feelings towards pornography will not only assist us in guiding our children, but will help the whole of society tackle an issue that’s not going away any time soon.
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