Internet Porn Censorship

British MPs have claimed that that measures to reform and regulate the porn industry have faltered, putting vulnerable people at risk.

Last year attempts to introduce age verification systems into open access porn sites to stop children being able to access extreme online content stalled, and MPs are warning that regulation proposed in a new online harms bill, currently at consultation stage in parliament, does not go far enough.

Tracy Brabin, the shadow culture secretary, whinged:

The online harms bill doesn't go far enough. We have to get control over this industry, said We have a duty of care to young people whose videos are being shared who might not want them shared, and ... to potential victims of sex trafficking and rape.

MPs from both sides of the political divide agree. Conservative MP Maria Miller, chair of the women and equalities committee, said: These are hugely important issues and [the online harms bill] is taking too long, we have been talking about this for two years now. She said the promised duty of care should include a way to hold companies to account if unlawful material is posted.

Activist Laila Mickelwait, part of a group of activists at Exodus Cry, told the Guardian: Pornhub handing out 'free' premium content is a way for them to cash in on those around the world impacted by the pandemic. Pornhub is collecting an incredible amount of user data including IP addresses by allowing web beacons and other special information targeting technology on all user devices, and monetising it for their own gain.

The popular porn website Pornhub has made its premium services free till April 3. Initially the offer was restricted to covid hotspots Italy, Spain, and France, but noe the service has been made free all over the world.

PornHub has has also announced that it will be donating a portion of its income to helping out with the coronavirus crisis.

Pornhub also released a chart showing how porn viewing has increased at the time of lockdown.

Channel 4 has released the trailer for the network's upcoming drama, Adult Material, based around the porn industry, starring Rupert Everett and Joe Dempsie.

The Sun described the trailer as:

seriously racy, giving viewers a look at what to expect from the series, which focuses on the porn industry.

Set in modern Britain, the four-part series looks into the adult entertainment business from the point of view of a female performer. Lead character Jolene Dollar (played by Hayley Squires) has worked in the industry her entire adult life and has seen it change from dodgy backroom dealings to a legitimate way to make some serious money.

Adult studio Evil Angel announced that the company is temporarily suspending production, effective Monday, March 16.

Evil Angel founder John Stagliano stated, The spread of the COVID-19 virus is unknown at this point. Evil Angel is stopping production as of Monday morning, pending testing being available to performers. One thing the industry does well is testing. The company stated that its paramount consideration is the safety of performers and crew members.

A toned down version of a Utah bill requiring nonsense warning labels on pornography emerged from the Senate on Friday, one vote away from heading to the governor's desk.

Under the modified legislation, an adult content website would have to display a now shortened , one-sentence statement: Exposing minors to obscene material could damage or negatively impact them. Alternatively, the website could embed in its metadata the searchable text, utahobscenitywarning.

Those who violate the mandate could face fines of up to $2,500 per infraction. But pornography distributors wouldn't face repercussions for the occasional slip-up -- as long as they could prove they'd complied with the warning label mandate at least 75% of the time over the past six months.

The original bill did not include the metadata allowance and required a much lengthier denunciation of pornography that warned the material could impair brain and emotional development and cause low self-esteem and relationship problems if shown to minors.

The Legislation was passed 20 - 6 ans now heads to the House, which will consider the changes made in the Senate.

Update: Bill passed

10th March 2020. See article from xbiz.com

The bill has now passed both the Utah House and Senate.

The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a US adult trade group, has released a statement regarding Utah HB243, which would require all adult content in the state to include a warning label:

The Utah legislature is attempting to pass a new law, HB243, that would require all obscene material distributed in the state to come with a five-second warning label stating that such material may damage or negatively impact minors. Anyone who does not comply can be sued by the Attorney General of Utah, for a penalty of $2500 per violation.

Despite changes to the bill, HB243 remains a land mine of First Amendment issues. Affixing a state-mandated warning to an adult film, which enjoys First Amendment protections, is fundamentally different from doing the same to a food product, which does not.

The bill's author, Rep. Brady Brammer, says that the labelling law will only apply to obscene content. However, there is no established legal definition for obscenity 204 each case would have to be worked out through a lengthy and expensive legal process. However, the chilling effect on legal speech would be substantial.

HB243 is remarkably similar to a 2005 Utah labeling bill, HB260, which was struck down in 2012 after a costly seven-year court battle. In the ensuing case, Florence v. Shetloff, a federal judge ruled that Utah could prosecute a person in communication with a specific minor, but could not prosecute generally accessible websites. We don't know why the State of Utah would want to waste precious time and taxpayer dollars fighting an already-decided battle.

FSC supports the limiting of adult content to adults. That's why we've worked closely with adult content filters to register adult content, and why adult sites carry the Restricted to Adults Label, which allows them to be easily blocked. If Rep. Brammer wants to limit access of adult content by minors, consumer filters are a much more effective solution 204 and one that doesn't trample First Amendment protections.

About two Hundred anti-porn campaigners protested outside Pornhub's headquarters in Montreal on Sunday. They were calling for the platform to be shut down for a supposed role in sex trafficking.

The gathering coincided with International Women's Day.

Among those in attendance was Megan Walker, the executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre, whilst the demonstration was organized by Lalia Mickelwait, director of abolition at Exodus Cry, a group devoted to the abolition of sex work.

Mickelwait also started an online petition against Pornhub that has about 400,000 signatures.

The most immediately interesting point is that the BBFC has elected not to promote the research that they commissioned and not to publish it on their website. Maybe this simply reflects that the BBFC no longer has the job of internet porn censor. The job looks set to be handed over to Ofcom as part of the government's upcoming online harms bill.

The study by Revealing Reality combined a statistically representative survey of secondary school-age children with in-depth interviews and focus groups with parents. It found that adult material was a prominent feature in British childhood. Almost half of teenagers aged 16 and 17 said they had recently seen pornography, with the researchers believing this figure is substantially lower than the true figure because of respondents' awkwardness when faced with the question.

While 75% of parents did not believe their children would have watched pornography, the majority of these parents' children told the researchers that they had viewed adult material.

The report also found that while parents thought their sons would watch pornography for sexual pleasure, many erroneously believed their daughters would primarily see pornography by accident. It said: This is contrary to the qualitative research findings showing that many girls were also using pornography for sexual pleasure.

The researchers said that one side effect of early exposure to online pornography is that gay, lesbian or bisexual respondents often understood their sexuality at a younger age. It was common for these respondents to start by watching heterosexual pornography, only to realise that they did not find this sexually gratifying and then gradually move to homosexual pornography.

The research very much affirms the government campaign to seek restrictions on porn access for children and notes that such measures as age verification requirements are unsurprisingly supported by parents.

However the research includes a very interesting section on the thoughts of 16 and 17 year olds who have passed the age of consent and unsurprisingly use porn on just about the same way as adults who have nominally passed the official, but not the biological and hormonal, age of maturity.

The report uses the term 'young people' to mean 16 - 18 year olds (included in the survey as speaking about their views and experiences as 16 and 17 year olds). The report notes:

While recognising the benefits of preventing younger children accessing pornography, young people had some concerns about age-verification restrictions. For example, some young people were worried that, in the absence of other adequate sources of sex education, they would struggle to find ways to learn about sex without pornography.

This was felt particularly strongly by LGB respondents in the qualitative research, who believed that pornography had helped them to understand their sexuality and learn about different types of sexual behaviours that they weren't taught in school.

Some young people also felt that the difference in the age of consent for having sex20416204and the age at which age-verification is targeted20418204was contradictory. They also struggled to understand why, for instance, they could serve in the armed forces and have a family and yet be blocked from watching pornography.

Young people also seemed well versed in knowing methods of working around age verification and website blocking:

The majority of parents and young people (aged 16 to 18) interviewed in the qualitative research felt that older children would be able to circumvent age-verification by a range of potential online workarounds. Additionally, many 16- to 18-year-olds interviewed in the qualitative work who could not identify a workaround at present felt they would be able to find a potential method for circumventing age-verification if required.

Some of the most commonly known workarounds that older children thought may potentially negate
age-verification included:

• Using a VPN to appear as if you are accessing adult content from elsewhere in the world
• Torrenting files by downloading the data in chunks
• Using Tor (the ‘onion’ router) to disguise the user’s location
• By accessing the dark web
• By using proxy websites

Maybe the missed another obvious workaround, sharing porn amongst themselves via internet messaging or memory sticks.