Pornography should be restricted on the internet in the same way as it is in the shops, a well-known writer and director has said.
Armando Iannucci OBE, the man behind The Day Today, Alan Partridge and The Thick of It, believes big digital companies like Google and Facebook should have the same responsibilities as retailers.
Iannucci called on regulators to impose greater restrictions on web giants.
Restrictions
He said: “We have porn freely available on the internet, but not in supermarkets, so what’s wrong with restricting it?”
Google and Facebook have been criticised for failing to crack down on internet porn.
YouTube, part of the same company as Google, does not officially allow pornography to be posted on its site, but according to a report in The Sunday Times, the rules are regularly broken.
Sex crime
Earlier this month, a Scottish charity said online pornography is to blame for a record number of sex crimes by under-18s.
Last year, a total of 407 minors were reported for rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, or other sex crimes in Scotland. This number included 48 people under the age of 16.
Mary Sharpe, Chief Executive of charity The Reward Foundation, said young minds are being desensitised to sexual violence through viewing pornography.
New powers
At present, pornography sites are largely unregulated but the UK Government has taken steps to require pornography websites to verify the age of users.
From spring next year, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will be given powers to restrict UK and overseas sites which fail to show they are denying access to under-18s.