The government’s crackdown on porn – just a first step

For those born after the early noughties, a world not dominated by the internet is almost completely unimaginable. In today’s digital age, we are all online more than ever before, with Ofcom reporting in 2024 that 18-24 year olds spent over 6 hours a day on average on laptops, smartphones and tablets. However, the internet- a convenient hub of easily accessible information, social networking sites and more cute cat videos than you could ever hope to watch in a lifetime- can also become a dangerous echo chamber. For the young and impressionable, it is easier than ever to be lured in by damaging content. In fact, with platforms like TikTok pushing pro- anorexia videos onto users’ For You pages and Twitter’s laissez-faire attitude when it comes to content regulation, it seems almost unavoidable.

In particular, concerns over children’s exposure to pornographic videos have risen in recent years. A government-commissioned report led by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza, published in January 2023, was the first to seriously propose putting in place barriers to restrict access. When reading the report’s findings, it is not difficult to see why. According to the survey, the average age at which children are first exposed to porn is just 13 years old. Pornography has quietly become a powerful but unregulated form of sex education for young people, often offering them their very first exposure to sexual behaviour. Even more concerning is the revelation that 79% of those surveyed had seen violent pornography- depicting acts such as airway restriction and slapping, among others- before the age of 18. Exposure to such content at a young age (particularly repeated exposure, as was the case for many) risks normalising behaviour that is neither safe nor acceptable. Harrowingly, de Souza recounted speaking to a 12-year-old girl who was strangled non-consensually by her boyfriend during their first kiss- an act that he had seen depicted in pornography and had thought normal. The more recent version of this report, also by the Children’s Commissioner, throws this fact into stark perspective. In the survey, 44% of respondents agreed with the statement “Girls may say no at first but then can be persuaded to have sex”. Among those surveyed, minors who had seen pornography were more likely to agree than those who had not.

In response to mounting pressure, the government passed the Online Safety Act in 2023, which gave online platforms the legal duty to protect underage users from accessing harmful content online. This includes content that encourages self-harm, suicide or eating disorders, and in particular, pornography. While many aspects of the Act were not implemented right away, companies were given a deadline by which to make the necessary changes. As of 25 July this year, online pornography sites such as PornHub and XVideos have added robust age verification systems that require users to upload photo ID or submit their photo to facial recognition software. Gone are the days of simple tick boxes, confirming that “Yes, I’m eighteen years old.”

The consequences of the changes have been almost immediate, with traffic to major porn sites dropping considerably in the subsequent months. This has been hailed as a victory by some who believe that the new regulations have succeeded in preventing minors from accessing such content. However, it may also indicate that they are simply turning to less regulated sites, or more covert means of accessing pornography. As Daniel Card of the British Computer Society puts it, “That’s the uncomfortable truth: people will take risks to get what they want online.”

It has quickly become clear just how easy it is to bypass age verification requirements. In the days after the new regulations came into effect, the BBC reported that half of the top ten free apps on the Apple app download charts were for Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. One company, Proton VPN, even reported a 1800% spike in downloads- a statistic that is certainly not a coincidence. VPNs can be used to disguise an internet user’s location via a remote server, making it appear as if they are accessing online content from another country. This provides a cheap and easy way for minors to circumvent age restrictions on sites in the UK.

As well as providing access to the content blocked under the Online Safety Act, VPN usage can also come with risks of its own. Card states that, “Some [VPN providers] act as traffic brokers for data harvesting firms, others are so poorly built they expose users to attacks.”

It isn’t just minors’ privacy at risk, either. Due to many sites’ requirements that users show photographic ID to gain access, the new regulations effectively create a database of those who consume pornographic content. Many of the third-party sites used to verify users’ identities are of questionable security, meaning that sensitive data about the sexual preferences of those who submit their details may be at risk. This raises uncomfortable questions about the hidden cost of the Act, and whether the most private details of millions of people’s lives could be under surveillance.

Most significantly, the government’s new restrictions do not deal with the root cause of the issue: a society that normalises the objectification of women. They do nothing to negate the harmful impact of pornography use among those over eighteen who are not affected by the new legislation, despite evidence in numerous studies that adults are still vulnerable to its influence on how they view sex, women and consent.

As long as pornographic content continues to falsely shape ideas about sex and relationships, the underlying ideas that fuel violence and misogyny will persist. Of course, while a blanket ban on all pornography is perhaps unrealistic and even unnecessary in the view of many, there are other steps to be taken that are not: comprehensive sex education, lessons on media literacy and honest, open conversations with young adults about consent.

Ultimately, the Online Safety Act marks a sincere effort to tackle a long-ignored issue and may indeed prove to be a milestone in protecting children online. However, alone, it fails to truly enact the deep societal change necessary. Perhaps, even, it may merely drive the problem underground.

Words by Lucy Eason