Legal Research

Save us from internet porn

By scott

Claire Perry, Conservative Member of Parliament for Devizes, is on a mission (I would suspect in Blues Brothers speak it is also in her mind a mission from God) to save all our children for the big bad world of internet porn.

Now first off I will say that she undoubtedly has her heart in the right place, but that is often where the problems start I find, especially when adults take it upon themselves to ‘protect the children’

“Increasingly, children use the internet to look at porn. Almost a quarter of teenagers say that they view sexual images online, while one in three 10-year-olds have seen such material. Worryingly, the unregulated and international nature of the web mean that children are easily able to watch violent and hardcore images with one or two clicks, either intentionally or as a result of an innocent search.”

Children are easily able to watch violent and hardcore images ? Well if any of these children watch the news on or offline they’ll see violent images, so I presume what Claire meant to say here was violent hardcore images (unless she wants to make the news opt-in too?) If it is violent hardcore, then I’m sure she must already be aware of Sections 63-71 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 which the last government introduced to make it a crime to possess many forms of pornography ? in this case called ‘extreme pornography’ even if produced by consenting adults. And just so you know the legislation defines what this means: An ?extreme pornographic image? is an image which is both?(a) pornographic, and (b) an extreme image.

No, I swear, I am not making that up. Go look for yourselves.

Also they can find this material in one or two clicks, either intentionally or as a result of an innocent search. Well if I was searching for porn then I’d certainly be disappointed if it was taking me more than a couple of clicks to get results, but I don’t really buy the innocent search line anymore, unless Perry is referring perhaps to searches about health issues, and maybe sex education etc ? the types of things that web filtering systems have been renowned for blocking as ‘porn’.

According to Perry there is “plenty of smaller scale evidence that frequent exposure to porn is damaging views about sex, relationships and body image. ” I’m sure there is. I’m just glad there is no similar ‘evidence’ that that mainstream television, publishing and movies have any effect on these issues ?I mean it would be terrible if there was (I wouldn’t suggest Perry did a google search on this one)

But wait - Parents are worried.

Perry says this, and quotes figures from a YouGov survey found that 83 per cent of people think that internet porn is damaging children, which at the same time revealed that only half these worried parents could be arsed to enable filters on their children’s computers. According to Perry this is “Not really surprising, given the clunkiness of filters and proliferation of internet-enabled devices in homes.”

I’m sorry. My number one concern is the well being of my child, but because I’ve just got too many internet enabled devices in the home, who can expect me to go through the trouble of trying to enable filters on the internet connections/PCs etc. What a load of rubbish. Yes, I agree filters are not brilliant, and I may as a parent choose not to enable them because I think the positives of blocking some content is not outweighed by the overblocking and underblocking of content. But, can we just be clear here: filters don’t miraculously improve in quality when you install them at a network level, if you think they’re ‘clunky’ at the home level, why do you expect them to be better at network level?

Also, if parents are so worried why have Mumsnet, perhaps the most influential online parenting community seemingly withdrawn support for the campaign? ? a wise move in my view by an organisation that have shown themselves to be quite savvy during the last few years. If they can see the flaws in the plans, then surely others should take note.

There is something funny, that Perry is a member of a party who hates the nanny state and want to put power back in the hands of individuals at the same time as wanting to make ISPs take a nanny state role. She even ends with a stark warning.

“if the ISP industry does not come up with a workable opt-in solution, regulation may be the only answer.”

Yes, Perry is seriously threatening that she would legislate to force UK ISPs to offer a filtered internet access package as default. Claire see’s a world where you’ll log on to the internet and you’ll get access to government approved content only until you click and ‘opt-in’ to the type of content you might want to access via the internet. Maybe she see ISPs offering a menu on sign up ? think of it as an EPG for the internet - tick here if you may want to search for/view: sport, health, news, politics, art, TV, porn etc.

Here’s an idea, why don’t we try education and conversation. Actually talk to our children about sex and sexuality, relationships, body image, sexting, social networking dangers etc. Too often these types of campaigns to ‘protect children’ are supported by the same type of people who want to ‘protect’ their children by denying them sex education at school, either all together or to an age where - if you examine out teen pregnancy statistics - it is far too late.

Denying children valuable information does not protect them, you could even argue it is a form of child abuse, as it is done soley to protect the embarrassements of parents, would don’t want to discuss these things with their children.

What price a little uncomfort and awkwardness for the good of your child’s heath and well being? A price too high for many ‘protecting’ their children it would seem.

Full post as published by Information Overload on February 11, 2011 (boomark / email).