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Google Child Abuse David Cameron

Government, Google set to announce plans to ban 'torture porn'

By Mark Leiser, Research Fellow

July 21, 2013 | 5 min read

The government is set to announce a new set of measures to tackle violent online pornography known as “extreme pornography”. The measures, which are set to have influence on both Public Wi-Fi and Internet companies, are set to be announced by government next week. Extreme pornography is a relatively new term in UK law and can be traced back to when the Home Office and the Scottish Executive launched their joint consultation paper: ‘Consultation: on the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Material’ in 2005.

The issue of extreme pornography has proved to be significantly challenging to regulate, in practice, by our existing laws. “Extreme pornography” featuring violent rape, sexual torture and other abusive non-consensual acts existed in various forms before the internet, but the publication and supply could be controlled primarily by the Obscene Publications Acts 1959 and 1964 and the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982. Effectively shutting down the supply chain removed the need for possession offences; however, the Internet function as a mass communication network makes this approach much more difficult. While UK community standards have moved on considerably, the law in the UK is still strict in its application of both indecency regulations and obscenity laws. So-called hard-core pornography may only legally be supplied by licensed sex shops and only strictly to those over the age of 18 and never by mail order. ‘Soft’ pornography is more widely available with newsagents permitted to sell so-called ‘top shelf’ magazines, again though only legally to those over 18. The internet is, however, at least in relation to pornography, a case study in the Internet and free markets.Pornography featuring scenes of simulated rape are already banned in Scotland, but legislation introduced UK-wide in 2008 making it an offence to possess “extreme” pornography did not cover images of rape. Nevertheless, this is another measure that has effectively added to a long list of obscenity related measures to tackle the perception that violence against women is amplified by watching videos on the Internet. Currently in the UK it is illegal to view or possess images of child abuse under Section 160(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Section 45 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 defines a child as anyone less than 18 years of age. It is already illegal to possess ‘extreme pornography’ under s63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 and ‘non-photographic pornographic images of children’ under section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
Section 63 covers content under four headings: (1) snuff and similarly highly violent content; (2) ‘torture porn’; (3) necrophilia; and (4) bestiality. Although all of these acts may themselves be criminal offences if carried out against an unwilling victim, in most cases pornographic content of this nature is produced in much the same way as action movies produce scenes of violence and murder: using consenting actors working consensually in a managed controlled production. Obviously there will be some porn where actual criminality is videoed and this is illegal because of the direct harm. In other cases of extreme pornography, it is not that easy to determine whether direct harm has been committed as actors volunteer to participate in this type of fantasy role-playing. This makes the definition given in Section 63(7) that the image must ‘portray, in an explicit and realistic way’ the act in question is too wide to apply effectively. The government appears to have moved beyond the “direct harm” principle and is applying the “indirect harm” principle which means that there is some sort of recognition that even though people participating in this are consenting, society is harmed by its existence. During consultation the government attempted to make an indirect-harm argument, suggesting that “It is possible that such material may encourage or reinforce interest in violent and aberrant sexual activity to the detriment of society as a whole”.
While there is extensive statistical data to prove a link between the consumption of child abuse images and further offending by paedophiles, there is little evidence of links between extreme pornography and further offending, a fact previously acknowledged by the government. Serious question remain as to how Internet companies will achieve the government’s plans. Currently the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which is funded by the largest web companies, removes child abuse images from the Internet when they are reported. Now the IWF wants to actively seek images out in order to remove rather than waiting for their submission. Although details will be revealed next week, it appears Google and other search engines will start by removing links from search engine listings. However, as Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group notes: "The idea that banning some search terms will reduce the amount of child pornography online is a bit of a mistake. While I think David Cameron is very well intentioned, and of course everybody wants this kind of material to be tackled, we have no real evidence that search engines are the major way that people try to find this material.”"Because it's very, very illegal, people tend to be very secretive."

Google Child Abuse David Cameron

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