We need to put our children first and filter internet pornography

LOTS of parents lock away the alcoholic drinks at home so their kids can’t get at them.

Parents warn them of the dangers of underage drinking and get the support of experts in schools to reinforce the message. Threats of punishment are issued if alcohol is consumed before an appropriate age is reached (even if some parents allow for supervised and moderate drinking in advance of the legal age of 18).

This makes good sense. The developing brain is not programmed to cope with the effects of alcohol. But that doesn’t stop some of their offspring from somehow managing to procure alcohol and imbibe it.

Does that constitute bad parenting, if a teenager or pre-teen manages to somehow get and take drink? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

So why bring this up? Well it came to mind recently when reading and listening to some of the reaction to British prime minister David Cameron’s attempts to wage a “war on porn”.

Cameron has identified the easy availability of pornography on the internet, particularly to children, as an issue of major societal concern. He wants the removal of child pornography and other illegal images from the web. He gave an ultimatum to companies, including the search engines Google, Bing, and Yahoo, to fulfil their “moral duty” to block such material.

He has threatened the creation and enforcement of new laws if they don’t act to make it harder for children to stumble across obscene material, either at home or outside.

Cameron believes that children are “growing up too fast” because of a premature exposure not just to sexual images but a type of hardcore porn that gives all the wrong sorts of impressions about what is involved in normal sex. The stuff children — and even impressionable adults — can access is often violent and coercive, but even when it is not it can be little more than stylised performance, a form of circus act. Yet this is what the impressionable may come to think of as normal. Adolescents are always curious about sex.

Imagine that they start googling information and find hardcore sex of the type previous generations of teenagers never saw. What is that going to do to their developing minds? Cameron’s plan is to get broadband providers to block access to such porn sites automatically unless users specifically ask them not to do so. New customers in Britain are to have “family-friendly filters” installed as what is called the “default” option. All existing users of internet services will be required to make a choice as to whether they use this filter by the end of next year.

Many arguments have been made against Cameron’s proposals: One is that it is impractical because it cannot be made to work. Why not? Internet service providers and content suppliers can stop you gaining access to most things if you are not prepared to pay for them.

Sometimes it is possible to illegally download, but that takes work and knowledge. Maybe many kids would be tech-savvy to get whatever is being denied to them, but many won’t or would be dissuaded by the fear of getting caught. It is up to ISPs and sites to deny access to kids just as retailers are not allowed to sell them drink.

Cameron put it well when he told ISPs that “you are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it. This is quite simply about obliterating this disgusting material from the net — and we will do whatever it takes.”

Cameron also wants search engines and internet providers to play a role in policing what people search for, even perhaps redirecting particularly nasty searches to a page that gives warnings that laws are being broken. Again, why not? He also wants to act against paedophiles accessing illegal images of children, something he has aptly branded as “crime scenes”. Again, why not? Porn online may account for up to one third of internet activity at any time. Is that really what we want?

This is where the issue of censorship arises. What constitutes porn? Different people take different offence at different things. Who will decide? Is this the thin edge of the wedge, allowing governments to control the internet? Well, it would seem that governments already have widespread and covert control as it is, so why not use it to some good effect? The suspicion, too, must be that the censorship claims are often made to the benefit of those who are making vast sums of money by facilitating online porn and who do not want normal legal and media controls to impact on their commercial activities and freedoms. There are vast profits at stake; that more than the principles of defending against censorship may be more important to some.

Now it is true that much of the most offensive pornography, including most notably child abuse, are shared on what are called “peer-to-peer” networks, or what is known as “the dark internet”, where it is often impossible to identify offenders and block the sharing of material.

But again, does that mean nothing should be done to protect those who stumble upon material accidentally or naively? Surprisingly, Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte has been reluctant to follow Cameron’s example. He has said that he remains to “be convinced that blanket censorship or a ‘default on’ or blocker is the correct or workable response”. Worried about this country’s censorious past, largely dictated by politicians in thrall to the teachings of the Catholic Church, he has pointed to the differences between “images of child abuse and other illegal material and what might be described as ‘lawful’ adult content featuring consenting adults”.

The minister has said that legal concerns attached to mandatory filters is the other factor that persuaded him against trying to force ISPs to impose mandatory pornography-blocking internet filters.

“Even if it were possible to ensure that such measures were not easily circumvented, or didn’t inadvertently block perfectly acceptable content, the principled question of whether the State should be encouraging service providers to filter or block content to all users, regardless of whether there are children resident, would still arise,” he has said.

Rabbitte can also point, legitimately, to the fact that there are already technical and software solutions that parents can apply to their children’s internet connected devices. But it goes back to my drink argument. Without better and more consistent help from search companies and ISPs such efforts can quickly become redundant.

And it is legitimate to wonder if this Government’s desire not to press the Googles of this world too strongly has anything to do with the location of their European bases in Ireland.

Why would our Government do anything to upset such major employers? What good would it do to our reputation as an internet hub, one upon which the State hopes to capitalise further, if the Government was seen to impose censorship they dislike? But isn’t the welfare of our children more than merely an economic concern? Is it not better to try to do something honourably than do nothing at all?

- The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm