Regulating Pornography in the

Internet Age
• The Internet is not a censor-free zone.
• There are two main forms of censorship:
Blocking access to websites.
Surveillance of Internet users.
• Both are used in the UK.

Socialisation of Globally Sexually Explicit Imagery: Challenges to Regulation and

Research, Leeds University, 15-16 June 2009.
The Will to Censor in the UK
Department of Culture, Media and
Sport/Department for Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform evidence to the DCMS
Select Committee 2008 Enquiry into harmful
content on the Internet and in video games:
‘as a general rule, and with exceptions for
material that is illegal, simply unacceptable or
can be demonstrated to cause harm, we support
the principle that adults should be free to choose
what websites they access or what computer
games they play’.
 The Will to Censor in the UK
• In October 2003, Ofcom chairman David
Currie noted that the Communications Act
2003 doesn’t mention the Internet,
because Parliament thought that ‘the
Internet was still so new and its
implications so uncertain that a period of
legislative forbearance was called for’. He
added: ‘ask most legislators today and,
where they think about it, they will say that
period is coming to an end’.
 The Will to Censor in the UK
• Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary,
Telegraph 27 December 2008: ‘If you look
back at the people who created the
Internet they talked very deliberately about
it being a space that governments couldn’t
reach. I think we are having to revisit that
stuff seriously now … There is content that
should just not be available to be viewed.
That is my view. Absolutely categorical’.
 The Intermediaries
• Governments who wish to censor the
Internet put pressure on the
intermediaries: the Internet Service
Providers (ISPs).
• Under the EU E-Commerce Directive
2000, ISPs are recognised as mere
carriers of information. However, if an ISP
is informed it’s carrying illegal content, and
fails to remove it, it’s liable to prosecution.
 Pressure UK-style
• The Clubs and Vice Unit of Charing Cross
police station.
• The UK press.
• The UK government.
 The Internet Watch Foundation
• Set up by the ISPs in 1996 and initially
known as the Safety Net Foundation.
• A self-regulatory industry body, though
one in whose creation the government
played a ‘facilitating role’.
 The Internet Watch Foundation
• Operates a hotline for the public and IT
professionals to report potentially illegal
content within its remit. This covers:
• Child sex abuse content hosted globally;
• Criminally obscene material hosted in the
UK;
• Incitement to racial hatred content hosted
in the UK.
 The Internet Watch Foundation
• Operates a ‘notice and take-down’ service
for ISPs.
• Compiles an Index of mainly child abuse
URLs which is updated twice daily and
circulated to ISPs, who then use
Cleanfeed to block access to the offending
material.
• The Index contains between 800 and 1200
URLs, with 60 to 80 added weekly.
 Problems
• What is the status of the IWF?
• What is the nature of its legitimacy and the
source of its authority?
• In what sense, if any, is it publicly
accountable?
• Is there not a danger of ‘mission creep’?
 Problems
• The Internet Service Providers Association:
‘ISPs are not qualified, sufficiently authorised or
resourced to decide on the legality of all the
material on the Internet. Whilst ISPs take swift
action when they are aware of child pornography
on their servers – because it is illegal “full stop”
both in the UK and throughout the world – not all
sorts of material are as easily identifiable as
illegal, such as instances of libel and
defamation’.
 The Problem of Child Abuse
Images
• It is a crime to take, make, permit to take,
distribute, show, possess with intent to
distribute, or to advertise indecent photographs
or pseudo-photographs of any person below, or
apparently below, the age of 18.
• Geoffrey Robertson and Andrew Nicol suggest
in Media Law that ‘indecent’ means ‘offending
against recognised standards of propriety’ or
‘shocking, disgusting and revolting ordinary
people’.
 The Problem of Child Abuse
Images
• The IWF and the police define sexual
abuse content by reference to the UK
Sentencing Guidelines Council which has
established five levels of seriousness for
sentencing purposes in child abuse cases.
 The Problem of Child Abuse
Images
• Level 1. Images depicting erotic posing with no
sexual activity.
• Level 2. Non-penetrative sexual activity between
children, or solo masturbation by a child.
• Level 3. Non-penetrative sexual activity between
adults and children.
• Level 4. Penetrative sexual activity involving a
child or children, or both children and adults.
• Level 5. Sadism or penetration by an animal.
 Level One Images
• This is clearly the problem area, witness police action
against parents who have taken pictures of their children
naked (such as Lawrence Chard and Julia
Somerville/Jeremy Dixon).
• The campaign of harassment against the photographers
Ron Oliver and Graham Ovenden.
• The actions against galleries showing photographs by,
inter alia:
• Robert Mapplethorpe.
• Sally Mann.
• Tierney Gieron.
• Nan Goldin.
 The Scorpions Affair
• In December 2008 the IWF blacklisted a
Wikipedia page containing an image of the cover
of the Scorpions album Virgin Killer.
• The decision was taken in consultation with the
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
(CEOP).
• Many British users then found themselves
unable to edit other parts of the site.
• The IWF received a complaint about the same
image on Amazon.
 The Scorpions Affair
• Wikipedia and its many users complain
vociferously to the IWF.
• The IWF reverses its original decision ‘in
the light of the length of time the image
has existed and its wide availability’.
• Sensible and responsive or
• Confused and inconsistent?
 Girls (Scream) Aloud
• October 2008. The Daily Star brings to the
attention of the IWF a sado-masochistic
prose fantasy about Girls Aloud.
• The IWF reports it to the police.
• The author is charged under the Obscene
Publications Act.
• The article belongs to a common, largely
Internet-based genre of erotic fiction about
celebrities.
 Girls Scream Aloud
• The work is no stronger than much prose to be
found in bookshops up and down the land.
• If the defendant loses, the principle will be
established that what is legal offline is not
necessarily legal online.
• The protections offered to the written word by
the trials of Lady Chatterley, Last Exit to
Brooklyn and Inside Linda Lovelace will be
destroyed at a stroke.