A report suggests that children as young as seven are stumbling upon pornography. A survey carried out by the British Board of Film Classification suggested that three quarter of parents were convinced that their kids would not have seen porn online, whereas, more than half had already done.
Pornography sites leave gory feelings and thoughts in the minds of the youngsters. Kids under the age of 10 get confused as their minds cannot process the activity. Teenage girls grow with the notion that men should be violent during intimacy, while the teenage boys grow disrespecting women.
The UK says it’s implementing new rules to make it harder for children to access adult content. It is introducing a new regime of age verification. Currently, some sites require a user to accept they are 18 or above before they can log in. With this method, it’s very easy for anyone to click ‘ok’ and go on to access whatever.
The new regime will require a user to verify their ages with proof before they can have access to certain sites via a variety of methods, including credit card checks, and systems such as AgeID, which requires people to upload their passports or driving licences.
Anytime a UK IP address attempts to log on to a pornography site, the user will be prompted to verify their age. This plan was due to take effect in July, but was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances.
The country has appointed BBFC as the age verification regulator which will monitor adult sites to ensure they have appropriate means of checking the age of visitors. David Austin, chief executive of the BBFC said:
“Pornography is currently one click away for children of all ages in the UK, and this research supports the growing body of evidence that it is affecting the way young people understand healthy relationships, sex, body image and consent. The research also shows that when young children – in some cases as young as seven or eight years old-first see pornography online, it is most commonly not on purpose.”
According to the report, pornography has devastating effects on the children. Over 40% of the kids who had been exposed to porn agreed that it made them less respectful to people of the opposite sex. Girls feared that the depictions of the aggressive behaviour of the men might be the reality of most men.
Despite the new measures for age verification, critics believe that so long as it remains legal to use a VPN, people can always bypass the restriction. A VPN can make it seem like a UK-based laptop is in an entirely different location.
