We urged our supporters to write to their MPs asking them to back amendments to the Digital Economy Bill to give the proposed Age Verification regulator stronger powers to deal with non-compliant commercial porn websites. Following increased pressure from MPs the government eventually tabled an amendment effectively giving powers to allow ISPs to block commercial porn sites that refused to comply with age verification measures. These were subsequently passed.

During the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords, an amendment was tabled to lower the threshold from ‘prohibited material’ to ‘extreme pornography’. Mediawatch UK’s director featured on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour and in The Daily Mail as part of a campaign to highlight the impact of the Lord’s decision which would allow certain forms of violent pornography to be accessed behind age verification.

As part of an ongoing Front Page Campaign to limit the display of sexually explicit images around children, and in view of government guidelines published after the Bailey Review, Mediawatch UK contacted shopping centres alerting them to inappropriate window displays in branches of Ann Summers, following the release of Fifty Shades of Grey. The display showed an image of a virtually topless female model in store windows, only metres away from shops targeting children. As a result, several stores agreed to remove the image, with the Intu group taking action in all its UK centres. The campaign featured in the Daily Mail and local newspapers.

Alongside partner organisations, Mediawatch UK organised an event in Parliament entitled The Pornification of a Generation: the under 30s perspective. The event was designed to raise awareness of the impact on a generation who have grown up accessing porn at the click of a button. The high-profile workshop gave an opportunity not only to hear from professionals working with young people, but also from those directly affected. Simultaneously, The Times published a letter signed by all the participants to draw attention to the harm pornography is causing young people, and calling on the Government to do more to protect future generations.

In 2011, as part of the Block Porn campaign calling on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to implement an opt-in scheme at the network level of their service to restrict access to pornographic content, Mediawatch UK, together with charity Safermedia, installed 10ft high letters outside BT’s London headquarters spelling out the words BLOCK PORN. The image was featured in The Daily Telegraph’s ‘Pictures Of The Day’.