Tories promise to enforce age limits on online pornography. (PA/Guardian)
NSPCC chief Peter Wanless said: “The easy availability to children of online pornography, much of it extreme, violent and profoundly degrading, is of deepening concern.“It can leave them feeling frightened, confused, depressed or upset. The number of ChildLine counselling sessions regarding porn more than doubled last year to over 1,100 with some young girls revealing they were being pressured to mimic scenes from adult films.
There's an interesting link to film censorship and the BBFC's rationale
here. Whilst more recently publicly acknowledging the lack of clear evidence of harm, they continue to demand cuts or raise ratings if concerned about 'copycat' potential, for example banning the nunchuka scene from Bruce Lee's 1973 Enter the Dragon (18), or a knife scene from 12-rated Larar Croft: Tomb Raider. Media effects are easy to claim but incredibly difficult to prove - with such anecdotal evidence as that cited by the NSPCC perhaps the so-called 'pornification' of culture, especially youth culture, is an area where the case is more convincing?
