Powers to limit internet porn to be cut back
LAWS to limit the availability of hardcore pornography on the internet are to be watered down, it emerged last night.
Ministers had given hope of a crackdown last year when they announced that footage deemed too obscene to be sold in sex shops would be blocked by a new internet regulator.
But, in a climbdown yesterday, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said extreme material, including violent pornography and cartoons depicting child sex abuse, will be allowed to stay online as long as distributors put in place checks to ensure it cannot be viewed by children.
The change is included in Government amendments to the Digital Economy Bill, which will be debated by the House of Lords today.
The move dismayed campaigners, who have been supportive of the Government’s drive to force internet service providers to impose age verification checks on all porn sites.
Helen Lewington, of the group Mediawatch-UK, which campaigns against internet porn, warned that the decision to allow extreme sites to operate behind the age verification barrier risked giving them a ‘ veneer of respectability’. She called on peers to reject the amendments this evening.
She added: ‘We are deeply concerned by the Government’s apparent change of direction. These proposals will permit some forms of violent pornography to be viewed behind age verification checks. This will unhelpfully allow what is illegal offline to be legally viewed online, and may in the long term lead to some regarding such material as acceptable.’
The climbdown means only the most extreme pornography, such as simulated rape, will be automatically taken down by the British Board for Film Classification (BBFC).
Other material, including images of women being assaulted during sex, could continue to be shown.
It also means that sites showing cartoons depicting child sex abuse could continue to operate behind an age verification check even though the material they are showing is illegal, and anyone watching it would be committing an offence. Nola Leach, chief executive of the group Christian Action Research and Education, said the decision to set a ‘very much lower’ threshold was worrying. She added: ‘The decision to go to the length of asking Parliament to change this, opening the door to much violent pornography, cannot but send the message that this material is OK. This does not sit at all well with wider Government policy on violence against women and is deeply disturbing for women everywhere.’
The decision to impose age verification checks on online porn sites was a major victory for the Daily Mail’s Block Online Porn campaign.
In a further concession last year, ministers agreed that the BBFC would be given new powers to block the worst material.
At the time, ministers indicated the power would operate to a similar threshold as the test set for pornographic films sold in sex shops, which are also regulated by the BBFC.
But, following pressure from anticensorship organisations, they have backed down and now propose a much tougher standard before hardcore films can be banned.
A source at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport last night acknowledged that the proposals were ‘imperfect’, but said the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which covers sex shops, was too ‘outdated’ to be used to regulate the internet.
The source said the Home Office had also requested that the crackdown did not hamper work done by the Internet Watch Foundation, which chases paedophiles online.
A spokesman said: ‘The age verification measures in this Bill are intended to prevent children seeing online pornography of any kind.
‘These amendments will ensure that sites hosting extreme pornographic acts are able to be blocked.
‘They have deliberately been drafted with care to avoid cutting across the excellent work undertaken by the Internet Watch Foundation to counter online child abuse images.
‘The progress we are making in this Bill is just one part of the Government’s commitment to tackling violence against women and girls, including domestic violence.’
‘Deeply disturbing for women’