The United Kingdom Is Getting Weird on Porn (Again)

LONDON—Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the first Hindu elected to the highest office in England and the realms, has announced that he’s directing the government to review laws governing pornography and age-restricted content in the United Kingdom. Reported by The Telegraph late Monday, Sunak explained that he will review all regulatory and legislative proposals dealing with porn online and offline to be formulated to “fit for purpose” the aim of reducing exploitation and the exposusre of minors to age-restricted content. Top government officials for His Majesty’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology and the Ministry of Justice have echoed the prime minister’s concerns over pornography laws in the U.K.  In a press release, Technology Minister Paul Scully said that the British government must conduct a “pornography review” that “will look closely at the laws and regulations relating to offline and online content, informing our next steps in tackling the heinous crimes of exploitation and abuse, wherever it occurs.” Scully, a Tory (conservative) like Sunak, added that "Keep the public safe is the first priority of any government, and with technology moving faster than ever, we cannot take our eye off the ball in exploring what more we can do.” Justice Minister Ed Argar said that Sunak’s government will “keep up with the pace of the online world and this review will help ensure our laws work to protect people online while punishing those who share illegal and harmful content.” The pornography review, according to the press release, will examine the various “regimes” that impact the online and brick-and-mortar adult entertainment industries across the various realms that make up the United Kingdom. In the U.K., online pornography is likely to be subject to rules that would place it on par with adult movies released on DVD. Statutorily, the British Board of Film Classification serves as the primary regulator of pornography, but it lacks the powers to regulate porn on the internet. The review Sunak’s ministerial team will conduct seeks to consolidate those laws by applying them to online pornography websites, imprints and movie studios. The board currently classifies adult content as rated for 18 years or older, or R18. Such content is banned from mainstream television providers and is only available in retail sex shops that are licensed by local and national authorities. And, currently, there are no rating systems in the format of the British Board of Film Classification but, rather, in the context of age-gating regulations that have grown very popular in GOP-held U.S. states. The U.K. also has no specific regulatory framework for online porn. In comparison, the U.S. Department of Justice administers 2257 compliance to ensure age verification and the keeping of records comply with all the statutes that enable porn websites to operate. This comes as Sunak and his allies in the House of Commons are preparing to double down on bolstering the so-called Online Safety Bill. For several years, the Conservative Party-controlled House of Commons has struggled to push the Online Safety Bill (OSB). The Guardian reported the bid to tighten online pornography rules is not directly tied to the Online Safety Bill. But, it is a crucial aspect of the broad policy agenda held by Sunak and the Tory majority. Sunak, after his ascension to prime minister, told the news media that finalizing the Online Saftey Bill is a priority for his tenure. There is no indication of when that will happen given that the legislative package has a history dating back to the former Tory PM, Teresa May, in 2019. May oversaw a project for Parliament to conduct an online safety policy review, which essentially evolved into the bill being introduced in March 2022. This effort has lasted through four prime ministers. The blowback from members of the adult entertainment industry, technology companies and digital rights NGOs has also been significant. The mobile device maker, Apple Inc.,  joined the formal opposition to the Online Safety Bill. Sunak’s administration wishes to gut the rules on protecting encryption and wishes to adopt age verification policies in order to access particular websites on the internet, regardless of whether the sites are clearly pornography or not. U.K.-based free speach advocacy organization the Open Rights Group (ORG) characterizes the Online Safety Bill in its current form as a “censors’ charter.” ORG has lobbied in favor of redesigning the legislative package so that it protects privacy rights and limits government-backed censorship. AVN requested a comment from ORG but the group declined on the basis of not having fully considered the impacts of the pornography review and its relationship to the current Online Safety Bill debate. The Wikimedia Foundation, the publisher of Wikipedia.org (one of the most popular websites in the world) also announced its opposition to the Online Safety Bill. Wikimedia UK, Wikipedia's publisher in Britain, sent His Majesty's Government and the House of Commons an open letter asking them to protect "public interest projects" and for civil society groups to be exempt from the regulations of the proposed Online Safety Bill. Jason Kelley, the director of activism for the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, told AVN that the review of the existing porn laws in the United Kingdom is a harbinger of failure in public policy. The foundation is active in countering the Online Safety Bill in the United Kingdom and has lobbied against a variety of restrictions on encryption and digital civil liberties in countries all over the world. "Overall, it’s disappointing that U.K. officials aren’t concerned about the very real pandora’s box they’re opening if they require people to send their personal information and their sexual preferences out to third parties. But that is the tradeoff they’re making," Kelley told AVN in an email.