The regulation of internet pornography: What a survey of under-18s tells us about the necessity for and potential efficacy of emerging legislative approaches

Abstract

In 2017, the UK Parliament passed an Act requiring legal pornographic websites to implement ‘robust’ age verification checks. Although the Act inspired lawmakers elsewhere to propose similar legislation, it was never enacted, in part because it did not cover social media platforms. Instead, the UK government has turned to its Online Harms White Paper—which does target social media platforms—to protect children from online pornography. There is, however, scant evidence on the media platforms and technologies children use to access pornography. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a survey of 16- and 17-year-olds in the United Kingdom. The results show that more (63%) had seen pornography on social media platforms than on pornographic websites (47%), suggesting the UK government was right to target such platforms in its latest proposals. However, pornography was much more frequently viewed on pornographic websites than on social media, showing how important the regulation of such sites remains. Furthermore, our finding that 46% of 16- and 17-year-olds had used a virtual private network or Tor browser adds weight to concerns that restrictions on legal internet pornography—such as age verification checks—imposed by a single country may be circumvented by those the restrictions are designed to protect.