Why the Digital Economy Bill is completely pointless
- Katarina Poensgen
- Feb 15, 2017
- 3 min read
The digital economy bill shows how downright hypocritical the government is about online porn.
Sponsored to Parliament by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley, one provision of the bill forces adult viewers to confirm they are over 18 by giving up sensitive identification details, such as their passport or credit card information. The aim is to “protect children”, but giving up personal details to dubious porn sites basically screams privacy invasion. Don’t get me wrong – the amount of children watching porn is alarming and we need to do something about it. But this is definitely the wrong approach.
"It’s just pointless blocking porn pages for everyone under 18"
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is simply naïve in thinking that censoring online pages will shelter children from other violent content on the internet. As they claim this will merely protect children, it’s even weirder that they’re at the same time discussing whether to have a national database system that connects citizens’ legal names to visited porn sites. How exactly will this protect children?
In fact, a database wasn’t even what the original proposal of the bill implied. Exactly three years ago this March the UK television regulator ATVOD suggested legislation for all the adult webpages in the UK as they worried about an increasing rate of children watching adult content. Half of 2016 was used discussing this within Parliament, with spring 2017 officially making the bill part of the British law.
It’s funny how some people actually think one hinders minors from watching porn by cutting oaccess from a few online pages. Teenagers usually find a way around things - in this case very easily by asking older friends, getting fake IDs or even by hacking. Furthermore, there will always be numerous adult-rated movies and TV series involving violent pornographic sex scenes minors easily can stream online. If one considers the popularity of series that contain violent and close-to pornographic scenes like Game of Thrones, Shameless and Vikings, it’s just pointless blocking porn pages for everyone under 18.
Moreover, children are likely to bump into some porn advertisements by accident: a recent study conducted by Middlesex University found that young people are more likely to find out about porn through pop-up advertisements containing highly sexual images than from intentionally seeking out porn videos. This means the government would have to block social media sites like Tumblr and advertisers on Youtube, which contains plenty of adult content if they don’t join the British verification agreement.
An argument many pro-verification people make is that British youth has sex earlier because of soaring porn viewing numbers. But here is a fun comparison of that fact: The Lancet Survey 2013 reported that 31 per cent of British men and 29 per cent of women have had sex before they turned 16. Yet a study conducted by the BBC seven years earlier found that a third of Britons have sex below their legal age. This doesn’t seem like a major age increase to me. In reality, it’s the adults who will suffer by giving dodgy porn sites personal information.
According to Open Rights group, a digital campaigning organisation that protects privacy rights and free speech online, storing people’s activity in any database can easily be hacked and leaked. With the government’s database plan, people’s freedom could become even more limited. High profile people, such as judges, would have their lives ruined if their online porn habits were known to the public. But even celebrities have to be careful now: with nude mobile photos and sex videos already being a trend, their porn preferences could become a new one.
A Terrence Higgins Trust survey from last year found that three quarters of young pupils consider their sexual education to be inadequate. Wake up, politicians; this is where the problem lies! Instead of acting as our nanny, the government should improve teaching on sex in schools. At the moment, where parents are allowed to withdraw their children from sex education, there clearly is a big weakness in our education system.
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