Martin Daubney Lays Out Plan for State Control of Internet Porn

LOS ANGELES—Martin Daubney, the former editor of Loaded magazine, who attracted AVN's attention in 2013 as the host of the Channel 4 documentary, Porn on the Brain, penned an article this week for The Telegraph in which he makes the case for the complete regulation of internet porn by the government—in this case, the British government. But Daubney doesn't just put forward the case for implementing "state-controlled internet pornography"; he describes in detail how such an undertaking might unfold, and in doing so, explains how and why the UK porn industry would (and should) walk itself into "a new, controlled domain." The idea is not new. In 2013, AVN reported on "an adviser to the British government on child internet safety [who] called for porn sites to be moved into the .xxx top-level domain." Daubney in his call to action also mentions the ICM Registry-managed top-level domain, but unlike in 2013, when the campaign spearheaded by Prime Minister David Cameron to deal once and for all with the scourge of internet porn was just getting underway, Daubney makes the argument that "Previous state-sanctioned attempts to stamp out porn, such as David Cameron’s parental filters, have been doomed."  Porn is everywhere, he states, and points to data recently put out by UK regulator Atvod (Authority for Television on Demand) indicating that "200,000 British children under 15 had viewed foreign hardcore porn websites in a month—including 44,000 primary-school-age children, some as young as six," as his basis for posing the seminal question, "So if we can’t axe it, should we tax it—like soft drugs in Holland or prostitution in Germany?" The answer for Daubney is a resounding yes, but as a former foot soldier in the UK adult industry, he knows that there are serious obstacles to such a scenario. Still, he muses excitedly, "This massively controversial proposition could even achieve the unthinkable: and unite censors, MPs, child protection agencies and, perhaps most astonishingly of all, the pornographers themselves." The rest of the article is taken up with how "UK state-controlled porn could work." The first step according to Daubney is for everyone to agree that no one under 18 should have access to porn. The problem, he immediately notes, is that "age checks are also doomed unless either all sites have them, or we block the ones that don’t." Here is where the outlines of Daubney's final solution truly come into view. "Perhaps," he suggests, "within a new, controlled domain—for example the .xxx framework—the surviving UK porn suppliers, under the auspice of the Adult Provider Network, would set up approved websites with compulsory age verification." The Adult Provider Network (APN), which had its first meeting in January 2014, is made up of "a wide range of individuals and companies engaged in the provision of satellite and web-based adult programming, and adult films, across the UK," whose "aim is to encourage and facilitate a continuing dialogue between the adult film industry and Government, regulators and politicians responsible for framing legislation to govern non-terrestrial broadcasts." While Daubney does not say whether APN is on board with his plan, he adds, "The Adult Provider Network are feverishly working on fast, cheap age checks, using mobile phone numbers rather than credit card, credit check or passport/driving license details, which most consumers would balk at." He also has them acting as a sort of universal therapist for consumers of porn, reasoning, "Brits would be watching porn, but at least we’d know what they were watching, and taking its lead from the Drink Aware and Gambling Awareness programs, porn sites would be able to offer support to anybody who felt their porn use was getting out of control. Indeed, the APN already has xxxaware.co.uk—which advises on parental filters—although this would need significantly beefing up to include human resource such as trained psychotherapists to deal with porn dependent or traumatized individuals." It should be noted that ICM Registry has stated in the past that it would never agree to have its TLDs used for such a purpose, and it's hard to imagine ICANN, the international body that oversees the domain name space, signing off on such a plan. But Daubney appears unconcerned with any of that, focusing instead on the big picture, the ubiquity of online porn that is not age-verified. Aware as he is of the global dynamics at work that impact the entire adult online industry, and not just Britain's struggling and shrinking part of it, he brushes past such obstacles to make the case that his plan "would kill the overseas 'tube' sites—the current big players such as PornHub—stone dead overnight, as they cannot currently age verify under American First Amendment laws." That last claim is inaccurate, of course. There is no American law that prevents an adult site from implementing age verification, only forcing one to do so by rule of law. But Daubney nonetheless continues on, claiming that the imposition of a regime of age verification on internet porn "would be fantastic news for the beleaguered British porn industry. Decimated by the free, foreign internet porn supplied by the porn giants of the Manwin model, the few surviving British porn barons could position themselves as unlikely knights in shining armor." For that to happen, he continues, "Everything else would be 'blacklisted' i.e. blocked by ISPs who could be prosecuted for failing to comply—a move that already has cross-party, backbench support." He further clarifies, "The porn that UK users would access would be within agreed, legal parameters of taste, with nothing involving under-18 performers and removing the most controversial (rape/violent) porn." Regarding some of the "big questions" posed by his proposal, he addresses four: Firstly, monitoring the blacklist would be a monumental task, but it is possible, as the Internet Watch Foundation has proved by leading the world in how they monitor pedophilic material. Secondly, determined users could easily get around the system by use of proxy servers, but many wouldn’t want the threat of prosecution, especially if a new "porn tsar" with a porn-funded task force were in place. Thirdly, could we even block American porn without violating international trade agreements? Fourthly, leading anti-porn campaigners I’ve interviewed, such as Gail Dines would be aghast, as they believes there is no such thing as 'good' porn—and that all porn leads to 'bad' porn that encourages bad behavior in the real world. Daubney apparently thinks that last point should act as an incentive for pornographers to sign on to his idea, though he also acknowledges the "opposite end of the spectrum, the libertarians fear fuelling the 'porn panic' is ushering in a 'something must be done solution' that could inch the UK towards state-sponsored censorship on a level unseen anywhere else in the free world." He then quotes Jerry Barnett of the Sex & Censorship campaign, as warning, “I’m convinced the UK is walking towards an internet blocking system. An apocalyptic version of the near future is where the UK and then the EU introduces mass internet censorship and America and Latin America are the last remnants of the free world.” While this call for state-controlled porn actually supports Barnett's apolalyptic vision for the UK,  Daubney also notes in his screed that the idea comes with its own "fear of vested interests between Atvod and the pornographers." Here he again quotes Barnett, who observes, “If Atvod got the ability to write blacklists and whitelists and censor our internet, it would make its leader one of the most powerful people in the UK. For the pornographers, having a government-regulated pass is a very good way to make money." In conclusion, Daubney makes the point that others have warned about regarding Britain's failing experiment in controlling the spread of online porn, writing, "So having state-controlled porn is far from a perfect solution. But it is a potential solution in the absence of any other." Though his plan is far-fetched, with holes that make its universal application impractical, Daubney has visualized something that others with real authority and resources could conceivably take to heart. In calling for measures like those employed by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which, he writes, has proven that massive blacklists can be managed globally "by leading the world in how they monitor paedophilic material," Daubney's call to address what he sees as a problem with no simple solution may sound reasonable to like-minded regulators on both sides of the Pond. It therefore might be a good idea for members of the adult entertainment industry who find it hard to perceive threats before they come knocking on the door, as well as internet users (in the UK and beyond) who would rather not have a government record what sort of porn they watch online, to keep an eye on this potentially dangerous kernel of an idea. Indeed, in a world in which Western governments are only going to increase their online surveillance of potential enemies, counting on the anonymity provided by virtual private networks (VPNs) could also be problematic. The NSA has been working on "The TOR problem" for a long time, and following this week's deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, will no doubt receive the funding and encouragement necessary to continue that work. Hopefully, tracking the West's real enemies will take precedence over tracking mere pornographers, but it is also the case that once governments have certain tools at their disposal, they tend to use them for a variety of purposes. The purported strength of a democracy, however, is that it can keep those extramural uses to a minimum, assuming its citizens are determined to practice what they preach.