by Naomi Miles, CEO, CEASE
Let’s get these fundamental safeguards over the line!
Force porn sites to verify age and consent, Ministers told
We are launching a campaign calling for Age and Consent checks for all online pornography.
The proposal is simple: pornography websites should be responsible for verifying that everyone featured in the material they host is an adult who has given permission for that content to be published. Individuals who appear in pornography should also have the right to withdraw their consent to its continued publication at any point.
This is a call we’ve been making for years, but one that’s only recently has it been given serious consideration in Westminster. Baroness Bertin recommended Age and Consent checks in her Independent Pornography Review, and Peers in the House of Lords voted to include the proposal in the Crime and Policing Bill. This means that the Government would now have to actively remove it if it doesn’t want the measure to proceed.
Unfortunately, that may happen. From what we have heard, the Government believes these safeguards are unnecessary, for two main reasons:
Firstly, because offences such as rape, trafficking, child sexual abuse and image-based sexual abuse are already criminal, and platforms are expected to remove illegal material when it appears.
Second, because where pornography is produced legally, the rights to that material are generally governed by contractual and intellectual property arrangements between performers and producers, as with other creative industries.
Here’s why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Illegal material is already circulating online
We assume that those they see in pornography are consenting adults- even (or perhaps especially) when the content is violent, degrading or extreme. We reassure ourselves that it must be fantasy, just “pretend” or that it involves performers who have willingly chosen to be there. However, there’s plenty of evidence to show that these assumptions are often misplaced.
The Traffickinghub campaign in 2020 revealed hundreds of cases of individuals who had been trafficked into pornography, filmed without their knowledge or consent, or who were underage when the material was recorded. And presumably, these cases represent only the tip of the iceberg.
The scale of the problem is vast because much of online pornography is uploaded directly to platforms with minimal scrutiny. Within a matter of seconds, recordings of rape, sexual assault, “spy-cam” footage from a changing room, or intimate material posted out of revenge can be distributed to millions of viewers around the globe. The entire system currently operates in favour of the platforms, which profit from the volume of content regardless of what it contains.
Victims report abusive content but often struggle to have it removed. Even when it is taken down, it can reappear within days under a different title, in slightly altered form, or on another site. Once material is online, it is almost impossible to remove it for good.
For those affected, the knowledge that their rape and abuse is being watched and masturbated over by potentially millions of people across the world is deeply traumatic. How do they heal and rebuild with their lives with this playing in the background or threatening to re-emerge at any moment? It’s like a wound that’s repeatedly reopened.
We must do better. It is not enough to say illegal content should not be there when the reality is that it is. Rather than endlessly trying to take abuse material down from porn sites after the fact (which we know doesn’t really work), we need safeguards that prevent it from being uploaded in the first place.
Pornography is not like other creative industries
The Government’s second argument, that pornography should simply be treated as a matter of contracts and intellectual property, misunderstands the nature of the industry.
First, as mentioned, much of the material that appears on porn sites isn’t studio produced but uploaded directly onto the website. But even where content is “professionally” produced, the conditions differ markedly from those in mainstream film and television. Regulation is far weaker, and many individuals enter the industry from positions of vulnerability- they’re often young, with histories of abuse and under financial pressures or under the influence of coercive partners. Many later say they couldn’t possibly have fully understood what they were entering into.
Unlike mainstream productions where sex scenes are simulated and carefully choreographed, pornography involves real, unsimulated sexual acts. It’s raw and unfiltered, leaving women and girls in particular completely exposed. Performing in this context often requires a degree of emotional detachment, and the longterm impact can be profound, with complex emotional, psychological and physical harms that are rarely recognised or acknowledged in public discussion.
Due to the nature of disassociation, many only begin to recognise the trauma years later. On top of dealing with this, they also have to live with the ongoing impact of that material circulating online, shaping their relationships, getting in the way of them finding love and stability, limiting job prospects and in some cases even putting their safety at risk.
We rightly recognise the harm caused by so-called “revenge porn”, where intimate images are shared without consent. And of course it’s different where individuals have initiatially consented and where money’s changed hands, but our sympathy shouldn’t evaporate because the core point is the same: for both groups, the distribution of such material without meaningful, ongoing consent creates wounds that can’t heal.
For an industry built on the distribution of intimate material, these are safeguards long overdue. They’re basic protections that should have existed from the outset, but better late than never: let’s stem the harm rather than trying to mop it up after the fact.