Protecting kids from porn - new legal action

[TomFarr1]

Hi all,

My name is Tom, and I'm the Head of Legal Advocacy at a UK charity called CEASE UK (Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation). I have written a number of Medium articles in the past that have been critical of the whole "gender identity" debate that have (gratefully!) been popular on Mumsnet, as well as other articles on porn and prostitution (for those interested, my non-work affiliated writing can be found here: medium.com/@tom_farr/)

I'm posting today to draw your attention to a new legal action CEASE is launching against the Information Commissioner's Office, for failing to investigate porn sites who we believe have been unlawfully processing children's data, and consequently they are able to further target underage users with content that is exploitative, abusive, and illegal. Ultimately, we want to #ProtectKidsFromPorn.

We have launched a Crowdfunder that explains our position, as well as detailing the legal basis for the case. link removed by MNHQ at OP's request

It would be fantastic if you could have a read of the campaign, and share amongst others who may be interested. Any questions, please do feel free to drop me a message.

CEASE is on Twitter at @CeaseORGuk

My personal account is @uracontra_

Feel free to drop me/us a follow! Thanks in advance all.

Thank you. This looks really interesting and something that all parents can get behind.
You may need to repost this without the link to the crowdfunder Tom as Mumsnet doesn't like links to crowdfunders and tends to shunt off petitions to the petitions board.

Off to read the details.

Fantastic Tom. Rushing in all directions at the mo but will be back. Thanks to you and Cease for the good work.

I’m also going to have a look because I fully agree more needs to be done. I actually thought they were trying to do something about this but it’s not happening fast enough in my opinion.

I'm pleased to see this proposed action.

Bumping this thread on this very busy board

The FDS podcast on porn with Dr Gail Dines is worth a listen because she discusses the creep of porn. The clarity of the discussion brought me up short as I'm just not accustomed to it. Dines and the hosts discuss the impact of porn on young women (and men) - but it put me in mind of this topic and children's exposure to porn.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4268028-Gail-Dines-on-the-FDS-podcast

This looks great. I will read later

Thanks for posting. I will take a look at this.

Thanks Tom, I had never heard of CEASE before I had a look through the website
cease.org.uk and there seems to be some good stuff there. I hope you are successful in raising the money, and successful in your action.

Thanks for posting this.

Thanks very much for sharing this, Tom. I hadn't heard of CEASE UK at all so this is hugely helpful. Thanks to you all for the incredibly important work you are doing. Will do my best to spread the word.

Q for Tom- You are in favour of the age verification thing to try to prevent under 18s looking at porn. Have you anything to say about the fact VPNs and TOR are common knowledge amongst young people now?

As well as the fact what the Government is proposing for the age verification actually requires porn sites to comply and to adjust their site to allow this. Given that there must be tens or hundreds of thousands of porn sites all over the world, they aren't all going to entertain the UK Government. What do we do about all those?

And how would we stop people from sharing porn on forums, or p2p networks, or email/social networking etc?

Thanks Tom 👍

Although it would be helpful if CEASE returned to answer useful questions, a timelier response might be available via the Twitter accounts in the OP or perhaps the CEASE website.

I'll check this out thanks Tom - this is a huge concern of mine.

Thank you I will read this.

This is great, Tom. Thanks for all your great work. Will donate!

VPN and TOR is easy peasy. VPN especially is just a cheap monthly subscription on an app set up in seconds.

Thanks Tom..I'd rather try something than be like "oh it's so hard so let's just leave it as it is"

Thanks, will have a read!

@QuentinBunbury

Thanks Tom..I'd rather try something than be like "oh it's so hard so let's just leave it as it is"

Quite. I'm sure decades ago it seem hard to tackle the juggernaut that was tobacco smoking. The change in smoking habits didn't happen overnight but people today are healthier for it. That was a rich and well funded industry too.

Thanks Tom. I was aware of your background in this area but hadn't heard of CEASE.

Yes we definitely need to do something, and shift society's perception of what is not.al/acceptable when it comes to violent and degrading videos of sexually exploited women and girls, and who is watching them/able to watch them.

If it cuts it by a good percentage, it'd be worth it.

Can we ban any porn marketed as “teen”. It’s a bit insidious how popular that category is. Often the girls purposely look a lot younger than 18. Why this is allowed is beyond me.

@Rno3gfr

Can we ban any porn marketed as “teen”. It’s a bit insidious how popular that category is. Often the girls purposely look a lot younger than 18. Why this is allowed is beyond me.

Yeah, along with titles like "really young virgin teen gets tight pussy destroyed by stepdad" and then when the girls inevitably turn out to be underage men pretend they're shocked and they weren't looking for actual-underage porn, just girls who looked underage

Funnily enough, girls who look underage often are underage. As you know. Which is why you watched it.

"VPN especially is just a cheap monthly subscription on an app set up in seconds."

There are free ones too. Browser extensions and the Opera browser has "built-in" VPNs which require no set up at all.

You certainly don't need to be "tech savvy" to use a VPN.