MPs call for more protection for children online

Last year Mediawatch was pleased to be able to provide written evidence to the Culture Media & Sport Select Committee into online safety.  On Wednesday the Committee published its report and called for stronger action to be taken to protect children from online bullying and pornography.

The Committee found that more needed to be done to protect children online particularly with regard to content that is legal but still harmful to children yet which is freely available to them.   

John Whittingdale MP, the Committee Chair said: “those who profit from the internet must demonstrate the utmost commitment to protecting children and should be prosecuted and penalised if they don't.”

The report said protections like those in place in the "real world", such as putting pornographic magazines on the top shelf of the newsagent and stopping children entering sex shops, had to be provided online and at the moment too little is being done in this regard.  MPs proposed that sites that are "particularly harmful" and “make no serious attempt to hinder access by children” should be blocked altogether.

The Committee said that adult sites could restrict access by children in a number of ways:

• a robust age verification process should be in place 
• requiring payment by a credit card linked to an adult;
• shielding the content behind a warning page; 
• attaching metadata to the website to make it easier for filters to operate and for search engines not to return the material when operating in a safe search mode.

Falling short of our recommendation for statutory backing for the current voluntary protections put in place by ISPs, the report said that Ofcom should do more in terms of monitoring internet content and advising the public on online safety.

The Committee had been particularly keen to look at ways of preventing abusive or threatening comments on social media.  Having heard the evidence the report criticised the age verification processes used by Twitter and Facebook, saying these were "at best flimsy" and led to younger children accessing their sites.

 

The recommendation was made that social media providers should offer a range of prominently displayed options for, and routes to, reporting harmful content and communications.  Much of the abuse and bullying that takes place online is covered by existing laws and some of the worst online bullies and trolls are being brought to book in the courts, but the report called for clarified and guidance to be updated for the online space.

Although it fell short of recommending statutory backing for the voluntary measures developed to protect children online, this report is to be welcomed.  The internet has revolutionised life for our children and it behoves us all to ensure that they can use it safely.

The wit and wisdom of Mary Whitehouse

Many members have been in touch about our Mary Whitehouse quote project which we are running during this, our anniversary year.

It’s ironic that much of what we know about her views has come to us filtered by the media itself so, since 1^st January we have been tweeting a quote from her writing every other day.  We have also updated a dedicated Facebook page and website.

It’s been fascinating to hear Mary in her own words and I thought that, if you’ve not been following the initiative, you would be interested to see some of the material posted so far.

• “If society accepts the free distribution and display of pornography then inevitably it will fall into the hands of children.” 1967

• “We have created a candy-floss society in which the young can find little of hard substance on which to cut teeth of conviction.” 1967

•  “The creative growth of a society, and its stability, depend on the willingness of the individual to accept responsibility for his behaviour.” 1971

•  “The new libertarians are, in fact, the new tyrants.  They launch an assault upon the senses and freedom of the individual which is the essence of the worst kind of dictatorship.” 1971

•  “A simple choice: between genuine freedom and total licence, between cultural responsibility and cultural anarchy.” 1982

•  “No other age has exploited violent crime, as ours does, by constantly exploiting it as entertainment.” 1985

•  “Because it is such a powerful and all-pervasive medium, TV is bound to play a key role in creating the quality of life we all experience.” 1985

•  “We trivialise the argument about what is and what is not acceptable in public and private attitudes and behaviour if we reduce the issue to personal taste.” 1993

•  “Broadcasters should not take their decisions in a social vacuum.” 1993

•  “Today our society ruthlessly exploits the minds and emotions of young people for financial and political capital.” 1993

•  “We shall raise a generation which either grasps at sex as a physical lust or treats it simply as a passing fancy, no more.” 1993

If you are a Facebook user please like the page and invite your contacts to like it too and if you are a tweeter please re-tweet us.  We hope to get as many people engaged and following this as possible.  This initiative will continue throughout 2014 and we plan to use it as a basis for a major media initiative later in the year.  

Website: www.marywhitehouse.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mrsmarywhitehouse

Twitter: www.twitter.com/MrsMWhitehouse @mrsmwhitehouse

If you have not already done so please do consider contacting your MP about the Pornification of a Generation Conference which is taking place in Parliament.  You can do this simply and easily using our campaign website www.safeonline.org.uk.  Thank you to all those who have already taken the time to do this; as a result of your emails several MPs have been in touch for further details having overlooked their invitations first time around.

The Pornification of a Generation

Those under 30 make up almost one fifth of the population yet, despite their childhood and teenage years being only recently behind them, their voices are often unheard in debates about pornography and our culture.

These young people have a unique insight into the challenges presented by a society in which technology enables everyone to be fully connected, but also makes the most extreme material imaginable instantly available at their fingertips.

We are delighted to be working with a number of like minded organisations to give this under-represented group a voice.  Together we have organised a unique event to take place in Parliament on 7^th April which will connect young people with legislators and other opinion formers to discuss the impact of pornography on their generation.

The Pornification of a Generation – the Under 30s Perspective will be chaired by Rachel Gardener, the President of the Girl’s Brigade and all the speakers will be under 30, with the youngest being just 17.  They will share their experiences, concerns and insights on the reality of growing up exposed to, arguably, more explicit imagery than any previous generation in history.

The speakers come from all walks of life and include a psychotherapist, an educator and youth worker who will be giving their professional views and we also have some very brave individuals talking about how they became addicted to pornography and the effect it has had on them.

Not only will this be a chance for politicians to hear authentic voices from the sharp end, we also aim to empower a rising generation to continue the fight.

All 650 MPs have been invited to attend and we hope that they will take up this unique opportunity.  If you think your MP should be there please contact them and encourage them to attend using our campaign website Safeonline.org.uk which has been updated for this event.

Fighting for the future

 

This week has seen much media coverage of the news that three senior Labour politicians held leading positions in a human rights group that backed the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).

PIE was formed in 1974 and campaigned for "children's sexuality". It wanted the government to axe or lower the age of consent and it offered support to adults "in legal difficulties concerning sexual acts with consenting 'under age' partners". The real aim was to normalise sex with children.   Many of this week’s revelations are not new but they do reflect the shock that we feel about how a group with "paedophile" in its name could operate so openly for a decade.

Columnist Matthew Parris said “if there was anything with the word 'liberation' in the name you were automatically in favour of it if you were young and cool in the 1970s. It seemed like PIE had slipped through the net”

At the time there was a battle raging over free speech and PIE were able to take advantage of this.  Journalist Polly Toynbee wrote of her "sinking feeling that in another five years or so, their aims would eventually be incorporated into the general liberal credo, and we would all find them acceptable".

Fortunately there were those who were willing to fight for the rights of children including The National Viewers and Listeners Association (as Mediawatch-UK was then known).  Charles Oxley, Vice President of NVALA, successfully infiltrated PIE and was able to provide police with a dossier on the group and its membership which played a crucial part in the police prosecution of its members and the disbanding of the group.

NVALA drafted proposed new legislation to make membership of any organisation which supported, encouraged, condoned or enticed adults to have sexual relationships with children illegal and to make the production and distribution of material advocating such relationships against the law.  In her book Mightier Than The Sword Mary Whitehouse wrote about standing outside the committee room in which the ballot for Private Members Bills took place to make sure successful MPs were given sight of the draft legislation and urged to take it forward.

Mary Whitehouse wrote: “As I see it there is a choice of freedoms here: either the freedom of vicious perverts to propagate their perversions or the freedom of children.”

Reading these words in 2014 it is impossible not draw parallels with our fight to protect children online today.  The ‘adult industry’ launched the Free Speech Coalition with the aim of “greater public tolerance of freedom of sexual speech” and it currently engages in lobbying, PR and litigation with to this end.  We have this group to thank for legislation in the US which removed the prohibition on depictions that appeared to be of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and opened the door to a tsunami of material known as ‘barely legal’ which features computer generated images of children or performers over the age of 18 childified to look much younger

Protecting children from pornography is much more than a free speech issue.  As more and more emerged about the effects of pornography on those who consume it is an issue of public health and we must ensure that we do not allow this fact to be clouded.

Writing in The Times the year before PIE was disbanded philosopher Roger Scruton stated his view that freedom of speech had to be sacrificed when it came to such groups. He wrote: "Paedophiles must be prevented from 'coming out'. Every attempt to display their vice as a legitimate 'alternative' to conventional morality must be, not refuted, but silenced."

It is to be hoped that we will be able to look back on our present campaigns from the future and wonder how we, as a society, ever accepted the universal availability of online pornography without protection and be thankful that the work which are undertaking today has strengthened future generations.

Playing it safe

Much has been written about the merits or otherwise of playing video games – particularly those of a violent nature.  Critics’ claim that games are addictive and can foster an obsession with killing and death whilst supporters argue that they improve visual, coordination and reasoning skills and can provide a safe outlet for aggression.

Some new research from Canada has recently been published which considers the link between the types of video games teens play, how long they play them, and their levels of moral reasoning; their ability to take the perspective of others into account.

Researchers surveyed 13 and 14 year olds of both genders; they were questioned about their gaming habits and patterns and were assessed to gauge their stage of moral development using an established scale.

Previous studies have suggested that a person's moral judgement goes through four phases as they grow from childhood and enter adulthood.  By the age of 13 or 14 young people should be entering the third stage, and be able to empathise with others and take their perspective into account.

However this latest study found that this stage appeared to be delayed in teenagers who regularly played violent video games.  Hours spent playing violent games was effectively stunting teenagers’ emotional growth.  Interestingly, there was no correlation between the amount of time adolescents reported playing non-violent video games and their moral reasoning levels.

Researcher Mirjana Bajovic said: 'Exposure to violence in video games may influence the development of moral reasoning because violence is not only presented as acceptable but is also justified and rewarded.  Spending too much time within the virtual world of violence may prevent [gamers] from getting involved in different positive social experiences in real life, and in developing a positive sense of what is right and wrong.'

Debates on violent video games often get stuck at ‘do they cause violent crime?’ but as this study shows, there are other more subtle outcomes which are also of concern.

Narrow defeat in the Lords: The Fight goes on

Thank you for taking the time last weekend to use our campaign website, Safeonline.org.uk to contact a peer and encourage them to support Baroness Howe’s amendment to the government’s Children and Families Bill.  Lady Howe’s amendment required all ISPs and mobile phone operators to provide their customers a service free of adult content unless they opted in to receive it and made provision for robust age verification to guard against abuse of the system.

So many of you responded that we estimate every peer received at least one email of encouragement.

Sadly the amendment was not carried with 118 peers voting for it with 153 voting against.

We always knew that an early vote would be crucial to the success of the amendment and unfortunately this was scuppered by two last minute developments.  Firstly, the Commons decided to send the Lobbying Bill back to the Lords, which lost a good hour and a half and secondly there was much debate on an extremely controversial sex education amendment which took a long time to debate.

In the event Lady Howe did not start speaking until 7.39 pm and the result of the vote came out one hour later.

A number of peers who know about these things tell me that, had the vote been earlier, the amendment would have been carried comfortably.  It is deeply frustrating that, at the end of the day this should come down to something as capricious as timing rather than the quality of arguments.

Although disappointing I feel that we should also take encouragement from the result.  In her summing up Lady Howe said:

“We have debated these issues on many occasions and need to come to some resolution. On that basis, I wish to test the opinion of the House.”

The closeness of the vote indeed shows the opinion of the House.  The peers who voted for the amendment included Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats and cross-benchers.  Clearly this is an issue which transcends party boundaries and shows the strength of feeling on this issue.  The government will have noted this and are likely to be watching very closely.  As one expert told me this week ‘it would only take another Tesco [which Mediawatch-UK recently discovered was not filtering content on their mobile service despite tacit assurances it was] and they would have to legislate’.

Thank you once again for your support which, had timings been different, would have carried the day.  All is not yet over and I look forward to being able to write to you with the good news of statutory protection in the not too distant future.

Have your say: a real chance to see real change

Last year the Government announced that it had worked with Internet Service Providers to come up with a voluntary industry agreement to protect children online.  It was a great step forward but it can only be really effective if accompanied by robust age-verification for users which is sadly lacking from the industry’s own proposals. 

If we rely solely on a self-regulation we will have no long term security.  It may be that under intense political and media pressure today the industry will get its house in order, but where will we be in five, ten or twenty years’ time?  If it is true, as the Prime Minister has said, that ‘few things are more important than this,’ why is it that we have laws on myriad eventualities but nothing in relation to one of the most important areas currently affecting us and our children?

We believe that self-regulation is not a long term solution and that statutory backing is needed.  As you know, we have been supporting Baroness Howe’s Online Safety Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords at the end of last year.  The Bill, should it become law, would provide the statutory underpinning presently lacking.

However, Baroness Howe’s Bill is a private members bill and, although it received the overwhelming support of all the peers that attended its second reading, the passage of such bills is notoriously precarious unless they are allocated government time.

We are delighted to report that yesterday Baroness Howe put forward an amendment to the government’s Children and Families Bill with very similar clauses to her original Bill.  This is a wonderful opportunity to future-proof online child protection moving forward.

The Bill will be debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday 28th January.  We understand that the Labour Party will be supporting the amendment and, if the cross bench peers also supported it, there is a very good chance that it could become law.

If you agree that its time the law was used to protect children in the online environment as it is offline please email a cross bench peer and encourage them to attend The House on 28th January and support the Bill.

We have updated our campaign website, www.safeonline.org.uk, to enable you to do this quickly and easily. 

Time is of the essence but this is such a wonderful opportunity to have a real influence we hope you won’t want to miss it.