Natasha Kaplinsky: I can't protect my children from internet porn
Natasha Kaplinsky has spoken of her battle to protect her children from online porn as she demanded tougher duty of care laws to combat the damage it can cause.
Ms Kaplinsky, the television presenter and president of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), said her experiences with her teenage son and daughter had given her a first-hand insight into the way children were bombarded with pornography.
Research has shown that 51 per cent of 11 to-13-year-olds have seen porn at some point, often accidentally, which the children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has warned can distort and brutalise children’s attitudes to sex.
In an exclusive article for The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Kaplinsky, the former BBC, ITV and Five News presenter, said the Government needed not only to introduce tough age verification to protect children but also to take action to restrict young adults from accessing the welter of illegal violent and abusive porn available online.
Ms Kaplinsky, who is also president of the UK’s biggest children’s charity Barnardo’s, is calling for amendments to the Online Safety Bill, currently before the House of Lords, that would bring the legislative treatment of porn on the internet in line with the restrictions that the BBFC polices in the offline world.
Offline regulation not mirrored online
Through her charity and BBFC work, she said: “I know all too well the impact that this content can have on young people.
“And as a mother of two teenagers, I’ve seen first-hand the constant bombardment of online content that children today are forced to navigate, including material that in a sane world would be restricted to adults only.”
Ms Kaplinsky cited a recent parliamentary report which revealed illegal porn was “readily accessible” online including depictions of rape, incest and sexual violence.
This was because the offline regulation of legitimate porn overseen by the BBFC was not mirrored online and the Government’s Bill as written did not plug this loophole. This meant “content that would be illegal to distribute offline will continue to be legally available online,” she said.
She said it was not an attempt at censorship. “To be clear: this is not about limiting the freedom of adults to access legal pornographic material,” she said.
Strict age checks
“This is about the regulation of appalling content that eroticises rape and the violent abuse of women, or which promotes an interest in abusive relationships. There is a big difference. It is only logical that where content is unacceptable offline, we as a society should say it is unacceptable online too.”
Attempts to tighten the online safety bill on tackling porn online are expected next month when it comes before the Lords.
Former Conservative health minister Lord Bethell has drawn up a series of amendments that would force porn companies to introduce strict age checks to bar under 18s from their sites within six months of the online safety bill becoming law.
Any companies that failed to introduce age verification using ID documents such as passports or driving licences would face fines worth up to 10 per cent of their global turnover and could have their services blocked in the UK.
