Claire Perry MP supports "Block Porn" Protest

Today Claire Perry MP attended a rally organised by Mediawatch UK and Charity Safermedia calling on British Telecom to make access to internet porn an "Opt –In" option. The groups erected a 10 foot high message asking BT to block porn and also handed in a letter to Chief Executive, Ian Livingstone, asking BT to make access to internet porn an opt-in option.

Commenting Claire Perry said:

"One third of today's 10 year olds have been exposed to online pornography and eighty-three percent of people think easy access to internet porn is damaging to children. We don't want censorship but we do want Britain's Internet Service providers to give their customers a choice and I am supporting this campaign to get BT, the largest ISP in the UK, to make internet porn an Opt –In option"

Notes

11% of children in UK have seen sexual content on websites and 24% have seen sexual content online or offline[1]. Whilst further small-scale studies have found that almost one-third of 14-16 years olds first looked at sexual images online when they were aged 10 or younger and that 81% of children aged 14 to 16 look at online porn at home[2].

A recent YouGov survey found that 93% of Women and 73% Men (83% total) believe that the easy availability of pornographic content on the internet is damaging to children and 85% of women and 58% of men (73% total) believe that the easy availability of extreme pornographic content on the internet is damaging to society[3].

An opt-in model operated by the Internet Service Providers would mean that people who wanted full access to adult material would be able to opt-in to access pornography but households with children could choose to no longer have this material readily available as the default setting.

• [1] Livingstone, S, Risks and safety on the internet: the UK report. LSE, 2011
• [2] Psychologies Magazine, July 2010
• [3] YouGov Poll, 2nd – 3rd February 2011

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