• Question: do you think that the way porn is easily accessed should be changed? (e.g. strict age restrictions)

    Asked by chazza to Sam on 12 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Sam Carr

      Sam Carr answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      In short, yes. I think that despite all sorts of attempts to regulate the access of internet porn (e.g., placing age restrictions on it) it is (a) far too easy for those that are too young to access it, and (b) that it’s almost impossible to police something like internet porn access.

      This article by the American Psychological Association discusses some of these issues:

      http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx

      In reality, I think that in the same way that cigarettes now legally HAVE to come with massive warnings about the damage they cause, internet porn should come with the same warnings! However, the problems with this are (a) that it’s very hard to “prove” some of the negative influences of pornography (we’re only just starting to scientifically explore what it does to us), and (b) we’ve created something in the internet that is almost impossible to police effectively – how on earth do we “control” something like specific regions of cyberspace?!

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