Internet Pornography: When regulation goes extreme

The Internet has transformed the availability and dissemination of pornography, providing easy and instantaneous access to diverse range of sexually explicit material. Countries have, on different occasions, tried to regulate internet pornography. For instance, the rising number of pornographic websites in the early days of the Internet created a ‘moral panic’ in the United States, which resulted in various legislative attempts to regulate online pornography. However, most of those legislative attempts were unsuccessful, following the courts striking down provisions as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s speech clause. In the UK, although there was no sui generis legislation enacted to address Internet pornography per se, a number of changes were made in relation to existing legislation, including the creation of simple possession offences for child and extreme pornography. Rather than focusing on the publisher or distributor, possession offences makes the end-user consumer liable for accessing content. The focus of this talk is on the possession offence for adult extreme pornography, and it will consider whether the offence is desirable in light of the ‘harm argument’ whilst also addressing issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy, along with other associated concerns.