As the Online Safety Bill makes its way through parliament, CEASE, along with other organisations who care about protecting our society from the harms of pornography, are supporting an amendment proposed by Baroness Benjamin OM DBE, which would strengthen the Bill regarding illegal and prohibited online pornographic material.
We believe that the Online Safety Bill does not go far enough to tackle abusive and violent pornographic content online. This includes content which would be prohibited and therefore illegal on DVD and Blu-Ray, but is prevalent online. This includes content which suggests sexual activity with children (where adult actors are made to look like children), content which depicts incest, and content which depicts the infliction of pain or acts which are likely to cause serious physical harm, whether real or (in a sexual context) simulated.
This imbalance must stop. If the law recognises the harm that can be done by seeing content which suggests, depicts or simulates sexual activity with children, incest or acts which cause serious physical harm in the offline world, how can the same content be unregulated online?
You can read our briefing paper and the suggested amendment here.