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24 July 2017

Age verification rules won't just affect porn sites – they'll harm our ability to discuss sex

Relying on censorship to avoid talking about sex lets children down.

The British have a long history of censoring sex. In 1580, politician William Lambarde drafted the first bill to ban "licentious" and "hurtful... books, pamphlets, ditties, songs, and other works that promote the art of lascivious ungodly love". Last week, the UK government decided to have another crack at censorship, formally announcing that age verification for all online pornographic content will be mandatory from April 2018.

It is unclear at this point what this mandatory check will entail, but it's expected that you will need to submit your credit card details to a site before being allowed to access adult content (credit cards can’t be issued to under-18s).

The appointed regulator will almost certainly be the British Board of Film Classification who will have the authority to levy fines of up to £250,000 or shut down sites that do not comply. These measures are being directly linked to research conducted by the NSPCC, the Children’s Commissioner and the University of Middlesex in 2016, which surveyed more than 1,000 11 to 16-year-olds about viewing online pornography and found over half had accessed it.

Digital minister Matt Hancock said age verification "means that while we can enjoy the freedom of the web, the UK will have the most robust internet child protection measures of any country in the world". And who can argue with that? No sane adult would think that it’s a good idea for children to watch hardcore pornography. And because we all agree kids should be watching Peppa Pig rather than The Poonies, the act has been waved through virtually unchallenged.

So, let’s put the issue of hardcore pornography to one side, because surely we are all in agreement. I’m asking you to look at the bigger picture. It’s not just children who will be censored and it’s not just Pornhub and Redtube which will be forced to age check UK viewers. This act will potentially censor any UK site that carries adult content, which is broadly defined by the BBFC as "that it was produced solely or principally for the purposes of sexual arousal".

I am a UK academic and research the history of sexuality. I curate the online research project www.thewhoresofyore.com, where academics, activists, artists and sex workers contribute articles on all aspects of sexuality in the hope of joining up conversations around sex that affect everyone. The site also archives many historical images; from the erotic brothel frescoes of Pompeii to early Victorian daguerreotypes of couples having sex. And yet, I do not consider myself to be a porn baron. These are fascinating and important historical documents that can teach us a great deal about our own attitudes to sex and beauty.

The site clearly signposts the content and asks viewers to click to confirm they are over 18, but under the Digital Economy Act this will not be enough. Although the site is not for profit and educational in purpose, some of the historical artefacts fit the definition of "pornographic’" and are thereby liable to fall foul of the new laws.

Thank you for your work in disproving that human, namely female sexuality is just some modern moral shortcoming.
— Tiffany (@duafe) July 21, 2016

And I’m not the only one; erotic artists, photographers, nude models, writers, sex shops, sex education sites, burlesque sites, BDSM sites, archivists of vintage erotica, and (of course) anyone in the adult industry who markets their business with a website, can all be termed pornographic and forced to buy expensive software to screen their users or risk being shut down or fined. I have contacted the BBFC to ask if my research will be criminalised and blocked, but was told "work in this area has not yet begun and so we are not in a position to advice [sic] you on your website". No one is able to tell me what software will need to be purchased if I am to collect viewers' credit card details, how I would keep them safe, or how much this would all cost. The BBFC suggested I contact my MP for further details. But, she doesn’t know either.

The thing I love most about @WhoresofYore: they beautifully show that humans have always been wonderfully sexual. https://t.co/Mb4Ma4uifv
— Tagg (@taggianto) July 21, 2016

Before we even get into the ethical issues around adults having to enter their credit card details into a government database in order to look at legal content, we need to ask: will this work? Will blocking research projects like mine make children any safer? Well, no. The laws will have no power over social media sites such as Twitter, Snapchat and Periscope which allow users to share pornographic images. Messenger apps will still allow users to sext, as well as stream, send and receiving pornographic images and videos. Any tech savvy teenager knows that Virtual Private Network (VPN) software will circumvent UK age verification restrictions, and the less tech savvy can always steal their parents' credit card details.

The proposed censorship is unworkable and many sites containing nudity will be caught in the crossfire. If we want to keep our children "safe" from online pornography, we need to do something we British aren’t very good at doing; we need to talk openly and honestly about sex and porn. This is a conversation I hope projects like mine can help facilitate. Last year, Pornhub (the biggest porn site in the world) revealed ten years of user data. In 2016, Brits visited Pornhub over 111 million times and 20 per cent of those UK viewers are women. We are watching porn and we need to be open about this. We need to talk to each other and we need to talk to our kids. If you’re relying on government censorship to get you out of that tricky conversation, you are letting your children down.

The NSPCC report into children watching online pornography directly asked the participants about the effectiveness of age verification, and said the children "pointed out its limitations". When asked what intervention would most benefit them, this was the overwhelming response: "Whether provided in the classroom, or digitally, young people wanted to be able to find out about sex and relationships and about pornography in ways that were safe, private and credible." I suggest we listen to the very people we are trying to protect and educate, rather than eliminate.

Dr Kate Lister researches the history of sexuality at Leeds Trinity University

› Stephen Hough Q&A: “Silence is the necessary soil for any thought to flourish”

Photo: Getty

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15 July 2017

We need clarity on how Brexit will affect Britain's place in the digital single market

The UK's lead in technology will be undermined if we can't trade across cyber borders.

Brexit currently dominates the UK’s political conversation, as MPs begin to debate in detail what form it will actually take. Necessarily so – since there are growing tensions surrounding the government’s position on the customs union, single market access, Euratom and EU citizens’ rights.

The EU's digital single market (DSM) remains less debated. Yet the success of our country’s technological advancement and much that will drive future growth and prosperity depends on it.

Currently, the UK is the strongest digital tech player in the EU. Comprehensive analysis by Tech Nation says the sector is worth more than £160bn to the country – and investment reached a height of £6.8bn in 2016, 50 per cent more than any other European country.

We have 1.6m employed in the tech field, with an average salary of £50,000. Although Britain lags behind Europe in overall productivity, that is not the case for the technology sector, which is growing two times as fast as the non-digital sector. The tech industry grew 32 per cent faster than the rest of the economy between 2010-14.

A future outside the DSM will clearly bring risks to growth and jobs. The EU is planning to adopt a package of measures to enable unfettered online trade in services, capital and goods between the European Union member states. The new DSM rules focus on removing barriers to cross-border services trade, and harmonising consumer protection rules so that people can be confident of their rights if they purchase goods or services from another member state. They also focus on delivering the rules on, and investment in, cyber-security necessary to make this trade secure.

If successful, the DSM will become one of the largest and most valuable trading markets for global online businesses. The European Commission values a fully functioning DSM at €500bn – worth an additional €415bn to the EU economy. That holds the potential to save EU citizens approximately €11.7bn each year in online shopping.

With the UK outside the DSM, UK firms may face barriers in cross-border online trade. Firms outside the single market are not allowed to process EU customers’ personal data unless there is a special agreement with the EU. It seems evident that a "no deal" Brexit would prevent any such agreement. Even if such a special deal were granted, UK-based companies could only participate in the DSM if UK consumer and data protection rules mirrored those of the EU.

Nonetheless, EU citizens might be reluctant to buy online from UK companies if one of the government’s red lines continues to apply. If the UK were not part of the same legal regime, someone in Maastricht who buys what turns out to be a shoddy product from a company based in a UK city will have to try to enforce their rights in a court in that city. Under the DSM, they can enforce their rights where they live.

The DSM is also about making the rules which apply to telecoms providers stricter and more consistent across member states. This is important as telecoms products are the physical links over which e-commerce takes place. More ubiquitous and lower-cost broadband access means more people can participate in the digital economy as both buyers and sellers.

However, the importance of stricter and more consistent telecoms regulation goes wider than the relationship between e-commerce and underlying networks. The entire backbone of global supply chains is based on the ability of computers to communicate rapidly and securely across borders. It's well known that parts for British car production move back and forth across the Channel before final assembly in Sunderland and Oxford, but that whole process is also dependent on telecoms backbones.

Economists used to think that goods could be exported but services could only be consumed locally. Nowadays, it is widely recognised that services, like telecoms, are deeply embedded in goods production. We are all consumers now of foreign services even when we buy domestic goods.

Brexit does not mean that telecoms backbones cannot continue to communicate. What it does mean is that if the UK telecoms regulatory system or standards start to diverge from the European ones, that it becomes more difficult and more costly to ensure seamless connectivity across the backbone which joins the supply chain. And if that starts to happen, it is another reason for a company to consider whether it’s really wise to invest in the UK.

By breaking down trade barriers online, we will encourage a generation of investors and entrepreneurs to work within the UK, alongside Europe. A European Commission study shows that only 7 per cent of SMEs in the EU currently sell cross-border, while 57 per cent of EU companies say they would either start or increase their online sales to other EU member states if e-commerce rules were applied across the EU.

If the government wishes to harness and attract talent from all over the world and keep us at the front of the pack, it needs to address the issues at hand. The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee concluded that we have yet to see what the government’s digital strategy would look like post-Brexit. The longer Theresa May and her team leave these questions unanswered the more uncertainty will creep in and push industry from our shores.

The digital age is upon us, and the single digital market offers the UK the opportunity to be at the forefront of Industry 4.0, building upon our existing leadership within the digital sector and services. A commitment to pursuing a fully-integrated digital single market will guarantee growth for UK businesses, creating jobs across every region of Britain. Leaving the DSM would be a giant leap backwards.

Seema Malhotra is Labour MP for Feltham and Heston.