Censor in call for porn law
The chief censor says New Zealand needs to take a societal approach to tackling the pervasive effects of porn, including further regulation.
Family First national director Bob McCoskrie is calling for an expert panel to better understand the breadth and nature of the health and social issues created by pornography, and how to tackle it.
More than 22,000 people signed McCoskrie’s petition, and this week he spoke to the governance and administration select committee at Parliament, where he said porn was ‘‘feeding the health crisis of the digital age’’.
In 2017, there were 28.5 billion visits to the popular site Pornhub, and in 2015 New Zealand ranked fifth for the number of visits per capita.
New Zealanders spent an average of 9 minutes and 37 seconds on the site, and 35 per cent of Kiwis that visited the site were women – above the international average of 23 per cent.
Chief censor David Shanks and McCoskrie said a multi-tier, societal approach needed to be taken to better understand the extent of the issue in New Zealand, along with what harm was being done, and how best to tackle it. Parents worried
McCoskrie said parents, like himself, were worried about how to deal with porn in an age when the internet is so ubiquitous, and anyone, including those under 18, could get easy access to porn.
In a 2017 stakeholder survey, called ‘‘Porn and young people in New Zealand’’, 95 per cent of youth organisations and sexual healthcare providers said pornography was an issue for young Kiwis.
And international research had correlated porn use with issues like increased sexual aggression and sexual entitlement, coercion, risky sexual behaviour, addiction and compulsive behaviour, and porn-induced erectile dysfunction. However, it is contested whether porn use is the cause of these issues.
The availability, affordability, and anonymity of the internet, meant what used to be considered ‘‘hardcore’’ porn was now mainstream, McCoskrie said
If New Zealand wanted to tackle societal attitudes and rape culture, it needed to better understand the implications of using porn.
Shanks agreed with McCoskrie in that New Zealand needed to take a societal approach. That meant education, public messaging, and getting internet service providers, schools and businesses on board, as well as amending the law.
‘‘The picture that’s emerging is concerning,’’ he said.
‘‘We don’t have a simple, single answer, but there are some reasonable things we can do.’’
However, Shanks was not sold on the need for an expert panel to assess the situation, pull together the research, and decide the next steps. Shanks said his office and Netsafe were already doing this.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification, headed by the chief censor, was dedicating its major research project for the year to the prevalence, and effects of porn.
Age verification
As far as regulation goes, Shanks said New Zealand could consider making similar moves to Britain, where anyone wanting to watch online porn had to go through an official age verification process.
An internet provider-level ban, where pornography viewers had to ‘‘opt in’’ to viewing pornographic content, could also be part of the solution.
No matter what people think of porn, and about the debate around freedom of expression, everyone agreed it was not for children, he said.
Having laws in place that meant there were safeguards for people under 18 was one part of the puzzle.
Last year, the Ministry of Health said 80 per cent of online pornography depicted violence towards women and girls, and the nature of porn had changed significantly over the past 20 years, to become ‘‘more extreme, deviant, and violent’’.
The submission also referred to Australian research that found 28 per cent of children have viewed porn by age 11, increasing to 93 per cent of boys and 62 per cent of girls by age 16.
Justice Minister Andrew Little said he was aware of the issues surrounding pornography use, and he was open to suggestions on what regulatory approach New Zealand could take to tackle problems. However, there was no specific legislation in the pipeline at the moment.