The internet provides children and young people with a wealth of opportunities for their entertainment, communication, education and enrichment.  But there are also risks of harm.

 

The Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection found that children are easily accessing internet pornography as well as other websites showing extreme violence or promoting self-harm and anorexia.

• One in three British ten year olds has been exposed to online pornography

• 81% of 14-16 year olds look at online porn at home

• 75% of teenagers say their parents have never talked about porn with them[1]

However, only 54% of parents block or filter websites for their children, which means that harmful, shocking and degrading pornographic material is the default option in British homes.

Although newspapers, television, radio and films are subject to regulation, no such provision exists for the internet which is rapidly growing to become our principle source of news and entertainment.  This means it has never been easier for children to access harmful material including hardcore pornography.  The convergence of internet and television which is set to accelerate over the next few years makes this an increasingly pressing issue which needs to be addressed.

In a House of Commons debate in late 2010 Claire Perry MP proposed that UK based Internet Service Providers should restrict universal access to pornographic material by implementing an opt-in system at the network level of their service.

We, and most of the UK’s children’s charities, agree that the best way to protect children online is for adult content to be blocked as a default, with adults wishing to receive it opting in to do so.

This followed earlier activity including a survey of what information ISPs were giving their customers about the availability of parental controls and a campaign in which Mediawatch-UK supporters emailed and wrote to their ISPs urging them to adopt the opt-in system.

As part of our campaign to encourage Internet Service Providers to restrict access to pornographic content by implementing an opt-in system we, in collaboration with charity Safermedia, erected 10ft high letters reading ‘Block Porn’ outside BT’s HQ in London.As a result of the initial debate The Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey, met with ISPs to discuss network and device level filters.  Mediawatch-UK provided a submission in advance of the meeting.