Olave Snelling and Pippa Smith discuss pornography and the need to protect our children.

In the late 1980s, while filming at a school in Coventry for a series of ITV programmes on ethics and morality in the nation's life with Gerald Priestland, former Religious Affairs Correspondent for the BBC, an extraordinary and alarming finding was made.

In this deprived area of high-rise flats some distance from the city, request was made to film in the school playground, and later to talk to mothers and activists who were concerned to provide after-school activities for the children who otherwise had nothing. Filming completed, we talked to the headmistress, explaining to her that we had noticed a particular absence of the kind of 'playing' normally associated with large numbers of children in school playgrounds.

“I am not surprised,” said the headmistress, “My children do not know how to play.” She went on to explain that, in the large majority of households in the area, fathers were out of work. This was at a time when thousands lost their jobs because the machine tool industry (for which Coventry was famous) had hit the buffers, as had many other commercial and industrial enterprises. There was nothing for any of them, or their wives, to do. There was not even enough money to catch a bus into the city to do a little shopping.

Instead, they sat indoors and watched TV - but mainly explicit pornography, from early morning until late at night. Children watched this material before they went to school and would watch more when they came home. They were so de-sensitised to anything normal that they had no idea how to play as normal children would. That was in the 80s. Imagine what it is like now.

Children who had been exposed to explicit pornography were so de-sensitised to anything normal that they had no idea how to play as normal children would.

The Smartphone Generation – and its Consequences

Today, the situation is far worsened by the ubiquitous presence of technology. Smartphones, tablets and computers make even the youngest of children incredibly vulnerable to explicit and harmful material in circulation online – this is no longer an issue exclusive to television and ‘offline’ sources like DVDs and videos.

• 81% of 13-18 year olds have smartphones.¹ Smartphone ownership is now routine for children as young as nine.²
  
• At least 37% of 3-4 year olds go online; 28% of 3-4 year olds have their own tablet.³
  
• Within the 16-24 age group, 99% claim to use social media and say it accounts for 18% of all the time they spend using media and communications. On average, 16-24s spent 2 hours 26 minutes per day using social media in 2016; 61% use their smartphones to access it.⁴

Meanwhile, parents are trailing behind:

• 23% of parents say they have trouble controlling their children’s screen use.⁵
  
• 83% of parents have never received information about sexting (the sending of sexually explicit images of oneself via text or over the internet) and 84% of parents have never looked for it. 50% of parents want to learn more.⁶
  
• 42% have spoken to their children about sexting at least once, but 19% do not intend ever to have a conversation about it.⁷

Fighting to Block the Material

The effect of violent, horrific video material and pornography on children (let alone adults) is well-known, but little-recognised officially. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. It is highly addictive. It is utterly destructive. Pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry and the exploitation of children and many adults caught up in the making of this material is a worldwide problem.

There are a number of heroes and heroines involved in trying to get this atrocious material blocked, not least Baroness Howe, CBE, who, after many years of trying, is seeing the Digital Economy Bill making its way through Parliament.

The effect of horrific video material and pornography on children (let alone adults) is well-known, but little-recognised officially.

This Bill would introduce Age Verification legislation, that would require all commercial providers of online pornography to have age verification controls in place to stop under-18s from accessing the material.

Where websites refuse to comply, the Age Verification Regulator (the British Board of Film Classification, the BBFC) would notify them and could, if required, disrupt them by cutting off their ancillary services. In the case of persistent infringement, these sites could actually be blocked in the UK. The Secretary of State, Karen Bradley, has declared the Government's interest to carry through legislation to protect under-18s and to make age verification compulsory for sources of this material in the UK.

But there are still problems.

Digital Economy Bill: Age Verification

Age verification is not a perfect, catch-all solution for the pornography crisis. If introduced as a legal requirement, it would only cover the 50 largest commercial porn websites operating in the UK, which the BBFC says is proportionate, but which is not exhaustive. It may also only cover the four major internet service providers (ISPs), leaving many other smaller ones left out.

This also leaves a lot of other media platforms (e.g. social media) unregulated, providing ready access to 18+ content. The majority of social media sites set a lower age limit of 13 for use of their sites, but 75% of all 10-12 year olds in the UK are on them anyway.

Internet service provider Sky has questioned the effectiveness of age verification checks and installed its own alternative solution: a Broadband Shield, which filters out harmful content automatically and is turned on for their internet customers by default (Sky is the only major internet service provider to do this). 62% of Sky internet users now benefit from its protection, compared to a much lower take-up of 4-10% when the default was set to 'off’.

Attempt to Hijack the Bill

The House of Lords.

Meanwhile, as reported last week by Prophecy Today UK, the Government is planning to table an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill to further water down its suggested protections. Bowing to pressure from Labour and the Lib Dems, this amendment would make explicit material currently illegal in the UK (i.e. material that is so harmful it is considered beyond age classification) legally accessible to adults – and so theoretically accessible to children (given the weaknesses of age verification as described above).

And so, a Bill intended to protect children and young people from the terrible impacts of pornography could cause untold further harm.

The Digital Economy Bill was meant to protect young people – but it could cause untold further harm.

This is all deeply concerning and comes before the Lords on Monday 20 March. The problem within the House of Lords is that most Labour and Lib Dem Peers are libertarian and outnumber Conservatives.

After the vote, the Bill will return to the Commons, where the amendment must be resisted by MPs.

It cannot be beyond the wit of man to understand that even over-18s are going to be affected by the hideous material these Peers want to liberalise (indeed, the BBFC knows that they would be). It is important to note that sex crimes have risen by 50% in the last 10 years and violent crime is also rising. Women and girls, as well as boys and men, will be more vulnerable.

We desperately need protection at this stage – not further liberalisation.

The Terrible Fruit

There has been a tripling in numbers of children reported to police for indecent images offences in the last three years, to more than 2,000.⁸ According to IWF Research UK, “Girls as young as 7 are being targeted online and posting explicit images of themselves – in some cases the material was secretly recorded on internet calling services and then posted by a third party.”⁹

A generation of children and young people are being betrayed - internet service providers and platforms such as Google and social media must be challenged to be responsible and provide the best and most effective protection.

Online pornography is creating a public health crisis in our young people, whilst children are being driven to mental breakdown and even suicide by harassment on social media. The effect of consumption of pornography and violent material is a time-bomb waiting to go off. Our children are at risk.

Please consider emailing your MP – and/or a member of the House of Lords – today.

Olave Snelling & Pippa Smith
Working Party on the Family
Lords & Commons Family & Child Protection Group

References

1 YouGov’s SMIX Kids Report, February 2014.

2 DfE Research, 2016.

3 Ofcom, 2014.

4 Ofcom: Communications Market, 2016.

5 Action for Children, January 2016.

6 NSPCC Report, 2016.

7 Ibid.

8 1 in 6 reported to police for indecent images are under 18. NSPCC, 1 September 2016.

9 IWF Research UK. See also their 2015 report on this issue.

A timebomb of corruption is set to explode across the nation.

This was the warning given at a meeting of the Family and Child Protection Group in the House of Commons on Wednesday this week. The Group was considering the Digital Economy Bill which is at present at the Committee Stage in the House of Lords.

The Digital Economy Bill covers a complex set of regulations surrounding the provision and use of the internet. One of its objectives is to increase the protection of children from exposure to scenes of extreme violence and sexual activity on pornographic sites, but this may be the very thing that is not achieved!

Proposed Derestriction of Prohibited Material

These regulations providing protection are being opposed by a group of Lib Dem and Labour peers who are against all restrictions on public liberty.

The Government has intimated to Peers this week that because of pressure from the Labour and Lib Dem front benches, it will table an amendment next week which means that ‘prohibited material’ (i.e. pornography that is currently beyond age classification, such as violent or child pornography) will no longer be blocked forcibly by the age verification regulator, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

The amendment will mean that so long as prohibited material is behind age verification checks so that children theoretically cannot see it, it will become available legally to adults, unless it meets the much tighter definition of ‘Extreme Pornography’.

The Digital Economy Bill should increase the protection of children online – but this may be the very thing it fails to achieve!

If the amendment is approved in the Lords, the Bill will go back to the Commons where there will be further pressure from MPs who share the desire for full freedom of public access to explicit material. If passed, it will remove regulations that were set in the Video Recordings Act of 1985 that forced all films to be classified according to their content (i.e. for family viewing, age 15, or 18+). Films containing scenes of an explicit sexual nature and extreme violence were banned from public display and could only be viewed in clubs or licensed premises.

Currently, prohibited pornographic material is subject to this same law – but the proposed amendment would change that in the domain of the internet, liberalising the law and increasing the likelihood of children gaining access to such material.

The Impacts of Pornography on Children

I was involved with the Parliamentary Group that campaigned for the 1985 Act that produced evidence showing that anything that is available for the public will be seen by children of all ages. In those days there was no internet, but video films could be purchased or hired and were freely available in most homes. The evidence we produced showed that if these films were available in the home they would likely be seen by children.

Secondly, we produced evidence showing the harm done to children by watching scenes of extreme violence and explicit sex. We showed that anything seen on the small screen affects behaviour which, of course, is the whole basis of advertising. Advertisers would not spend millions of pounds promoting their goods if what is seen on the screen does not affect human behaviour.

One example we presented to Parliament was the witness of a police officer who said that a six-year-old girl had been gang-raped by a group of 10-year-old boys who had been going to the home of one boy at lunchtime to watch pornographic films.

Explicit films available in the home are likely to be seen by children – and watching that kind of material does affect them adversely.

Despite all the evidence, we faced massive opposition from the film industry which, since the dawn of the internet, has grown even bigger and more powerful. Billions of dollars are made in the pornographic industry, which has its supporters in both Houses of Parliament.

Today, research has shown that 47% of 11-16 year olds have accessed some kind of pornographic site, and that one in five 11-17 year olds have seen pornographic images that have upset them.¹

Towards Social Disintegration

If the Digital Economy Bill is changed in accordance with the Government’s proposed amendment, important regulations protecting children from harmful scenes will be removed. A timebomb of pornography and violence would be set to explode which will do untold harm among young people. It will make Sodom and Gomorrah seem like a Sunday School party!

Age verification checks are not enough to protect children from accessing pornographic material. Even if parents install protections on their children’s computers, young people soon find ways of circumventing them. It will mean that even the youngest of children could have access – not only on their computers but also on their phones.

Age verification checks are not enough to protect children from accessing pornographic material.

The ultra-libertarians among our lawmakers in both Houses of Parliament seek to remove all regulations out of a misplaced desire for full individual freedom. They have already succeeded in breaking down traditional family life to an extent that endangers the health and well-being of millions of children living in re-constituted families. Unless there is a reversal of current trends that are undermining the value system of the nation, we will experience social disintegration on a scale that is impossible to contain.

Lynda Rose, CEO of Voice for Justice UK, responds: “The adverse effects of pornography are so clearly established by research, that it is difficult even to conceive anyone today calling for liberalisation of current provisions and easier access."

“That a Labour/Lib Dem coalition in the House of Lords should, therefore, be pushing for amendments to restrict application of the proposed age verification provisions contained in the Digital Economy Bill seems recklessly perverse. Children will inevitably be put at increased risk - and inevitably they will suffer.”

Reaping the Whirlwind

Sadly, already we are beginning to see the harmful effects of these trends. We have children as young as 6 and 7 self-harming and becoming suicidal, with social media and other online content playing a central role in worsening this trend.

We have mental health problems at epidemic levels among adults. We have teachers on long-term sickness with mental health problems generated by the misbehaviour they have to contend with daily in the classroom and the playground.

All this stems from the deliberate abandonment of our Judaeo-Christian heritage and the biblical values that historically kept society stable and healthy.

The current trends are undermining our national value system, and if left unchecked will lead to untold social disintegration.

It is surely time for Christians who love this nation to speak fearlessly about the problems facing us. We have to speak about the ‘justice’ of God as well as his love. God is calling his Church to be a prophet to the nation. That means warning of impending judgment in the same way as the biblical prophets did when they saw danger. The Prophet Joel was told to “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming” (Joel 2:1).

Jeremiah was told to stand at the crossroads and declare the word of the Lord, “I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law” (Jer 5:19). The same could be said of Britain and other nations in the Western world. We have had the truth for centuries and we have turned our backs upon it. We have sown the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind!

What You Can Do

There are two things Christians can do right now. First, tell other Christians and mobilise prayer. Pray that the Government’s amendment will not succeed; pray anyway the Lord tells you – even if it’s to pray confusion into the House of Lords. Secondly, on a practical note, send an email to any member of the House of Lords you know (or even pick some from the list on the internet) asking them to vote against the amendment.

Above all – pray! Pray for the Lord to protect the nation from the clouds of darkness that are gathering to overwhelm us, even if you believe that the nation does not deserve God’s protection. Pray that he does not ‘hand us over’ to the forces of evil, as Paul foresaw the consequences of “the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom 1:18-32).

References

1 New blocking powers to protect children online. Department for Culture, Media & Sport.