The Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has proposed cutting off access to pornographic material at the ISP level in an interview with The Sunday Times. The government has been in talks with internet service providers (ISPs) to implement a system to filter access to pornographic content. Under these proposals, customers would have to contact their ISP to have the block removed.

Proponents of the proposal have noted that easy access to pornography can be damaging to children who view it. Miranda Suit, chair of the Safer Media organisation referred to a report compiled by the US-based Witherspoon Institute – “Children are becoming addicted in their teens to internet pornography. They are being mentally damaged so they cannot engage in intimate relationships.”

ISPA, the industry body for ISPs, has responded to the government proposal: “Ispa firmly believes that controls on children’s access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide, rather than being imposed top-down.”

Critics of the plan have noted that filtering systems tend to be extremely indiscriminate and with alarming frequency block access to important material such as sex education resources. Civil rights organisations have also noted that the classification of which material is pornographic and which isn’t is sometimes a very subjective judgement to make. In addition to this, once such a filtering system is in place, it would be very simple to extend the system to filter other material which the government deems inappropriate, including websites like WikiLeaks and foreign news websites, potentially leading to excessive censorship of UK internet access.

The UK would not be the first to implement such a control. Australia has recently implemented a filtering system, and China is well renowned for its “Great Firewall” which citizens often find ways of circumventing.

In the meantime, if you are worried about children in your household inadvertently accessing content you deem inappropriate, try downloading parental control software or using the parental controls that are bundled with your operating system or internet package.

We’d be interested to hear your opinion on this controversial issue! Drop a comment below.

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