Degrading and violent online pornography must be banned, says Govt review

Online pornography which would be illegal if it were available on the high street should be banned, a review commissioned by the Government has said.

Baroness Gabby Bertin, who led the review, said Ofcom should be given the power to police pornographic websites to ensure “degrading, violent and misogynistic content” does not appear.

“Whether you’re 15 or 55, there is a great deal of content that just should not be allowed,” said Lady Bertin, noting that young people have been exposed to such material for many years.

Lack of regulation

The Baroness highlighted the discrepancy between offline content and online pornography, which is not “properly scrutinised and regulated”.

She explained that to buy a DVD the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) “has to put a stamp on it, has to check that certain standards have been met. That there’s no sense you are encouraging child sexual abuse. No harmful, degrading, humiliating practices”.

She added: “You just have to go on the homepages of some of these mainstream sites and you will see of all that degrading content – particularly violent towards women – and it’s all there for everyone to see.”

Mixed messages

The review suggests that such material is fuelling copycat behaviour, and that extreme content is “rewiring” the way young people think about sex.

Lady Bertin noted that, in school, teenagers are “taught to reject sexist attitudes”, but that “a subterranean online world of pornography is simultaneously showing them that anything goes”.

The Baroness also said the Government should ensure that pornography depicting incest and non-fatal strangulation are subject to specific criminal offences.

Enforcement

The review recommends that the BBFC, given its long experience of moderating content, is made responsible for auditing content from platforms hosting pornography “to ensure they are tackling prohibited and illegal content”. Ofcom could use any evidence of non-compliance to “deploy enforcement measures”.

It further recommends that these measures should include engaging with the websites’ advertisers and payment providers to restrict or cut off revenue.

These recommendations need to be implemented at pace.

The Christian Institute’s Director Ciarán Kelly welcomed the proposals: “We, and others, have been calling for these precise measures for years. They are clear steps that I believe will make a real difference, and I’m pleased that Lady Bertin is seeking to take them forward.

“The question now is one of timing. The kind of degrading content that is in view here has been accessible far too easily and for far too long. These recommendations need to be implemented at pace.”

‘Appalling content’

Natasha Kaplinsky, President of the BBFC, said that “legislation has not kept pace with how pornography is primarily consumed today. The BBFC’s statutory remit covers content published offline but there are no equivalent protections online, where this appalling content remains freely available.

“Whenever I have a conversation with a fellow parent, we invariably share our fears about our children growing up in a society where unfettered access to violent pornography has become normalised.”

She said the review provided “reason for hope”, adding that the BBFC “will work with the Government on the recommendations in any way we can, including by taking on a formal auditing role to better protect audiences online”, which would be “a natural extension of the offline role we have fulfilled for decades”.

She concluded: “If society is serious about addressing the fundamental challenge of harmful content, we must ensure that what is unacceptable offline is also unacceptable online.”