News release
1 November 2005

A new international treaty on Internet content is urgently needed according to mediawatch-uk.

In a letter to Home Secretary, The Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP, mediawatch-uk director, John Beyer, said that the corruption of our young people by pornography on the Internet had become a major public concern.

He said: "It is vital that a new international treaty on Internet content is agreed at the World Summit on the Information Society taking place in Tunis later this month. This represents a most timely and appropriate opportunity for the British government not only to make known again its concern about extreme internet content but also its determination to actively combat the phenomenon with new legislation."

In the letter to Mr Clarke, Mr Beyer said:

"Our concern that a new treaty be drawn up is heightened by the rapid development of Broadband Television, already being tested in Britain, because such a system of television, via the Internet could circumvent national regulation of broadcasting. If an International treaty were in place, sanctions could be more easily exercised by national governments that had signed up to it.

"Our concern, as is yours, is with obscene and violent imagery that undermines human dignity and respect for others. We take this opportunity to acknowledge the Home Office consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material to which we shall be responding in due course. By way of an initial observation we believe that the scope of the material under consideration should be substantially broadened to include a much wider range of obscene material, for example, that currently permitted by the British Board of Film Classification at ‘R18'.

"If the international community is serious about protecting the health and morals of the young and the vulnerable and protecting them from harmful and offensive material on the Internet, we believe that seriously effective international measures are urgently needed."

ENDS

28/10/2005

Text of letter to the Home Secretary

28 October 2005
The Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP
The Home Secretary
The Home Office
2 Marsham Street
LONDON
SW1P 4DF

Dear Mr Clarke,

As the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis next month approaches we write to you with the hope and expectation that Britain will be taking up a leading position in pressing for a new international treaty on Internet Governance.

We believe that the global nature of the Internet is such that a new treaty is urgently required if content is to be regulated or controlled with regard to the extreme violent and pornographic imagery now readily accessible is to be properly eradicated. As you know service providers in America and Eastern Europe are responsible for hosting child pornography sites as well as extreme material and this problem can only be dealt with at the international level.

As long ago as 1910 the United Nations drew up a Treaty aimed at curbing the circulation of obscene articles and this was revised in 1949. It is evidently not now working in respect of the Internet and a new treaty is needed to provide a framework within which nation states can take action against such material in order to secure protection for their citizens.

We believe that a treaty should provide sanctions against service providers who host extreme sites as well as telecommunications companies who permit access to them. We welcome and applaud the responsible action taken last year by British Telecom, and others, to stop access to child pornography websites and we wish to acknowledge and praise service providers who have already declared ‘no-pornography' policies.

The Summit next month in Tunis seems to us to be a most timely and appropriate opportunity for the British Government not only to make known again its concern about extreme Internet content but also its determination to actively combat the phenomenon and to initiate international measures aimed at properly regulating Internet content in the public interest.

We are aware that the European Commission recently set out revisions to the Television Without Frontiers directive, which included modest proposals to regulate Internet content and to secure right to reply provisions. We regard these as necessary, and long overdue, innovations and we would urge you to reject the opposition to these proposals emanating from those with a vested financial interest in this industry.

The suggestion that self-regulation is the best means of achieving the objective desired by the Government is totally inadequate. Such a policy has never worked before in other media and we have no confidence that it would work now in the context of Internet content. The growth of pornographic imagery and the number of websites devoted to it bear witness to the shortcomings of such an approach.

We are also aware of a Unesco Convention that has been drawn up aimed at safeguarding cultural diversity and we understand that this, too, offers the possibility of affecting Internet content that fails to comply with the conditions as set out. It seems to us that pornography represents an imposed culture that is the very opposite of diverse!

Our concern that a new treaty be drawn up is heightened by the rapid development of Broadband Television, already being tested in Britain, because such a system of television via the Internet, with huge international resources being invested in it, could effectively circumvent national regulation of broadcasting. It is not enough for regulation to be devolved to consumers as is now being suggested in schemes of media literacy.

As you will know the Office of Communications, despite vigorous opposition from pornographers, has, thankfully, maintained the prohibition on ‘R18' hard-core pornography. It would be wrong if this prohibition were rendered ineffective simply by technology. If an International treaty were in place, sanctions could be more easily exercised by national governments that had signed up to it. Our fear is that well-intentioned national initiatives could be thwarted before any legislation is enacted or even came into effect.

We take this opportunity to acknowledge the Home Office consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material to which we shall be responding in due course. By way of an initial observation we believe that the scope of the material under consideration should be substantially broadened to include a much wider range of obscene material, for example, that currently permitted by the British Board of Film Classification at ‘R18'. (In passing we would point out that a Home Office consultation issued in 2000 on the regulation of ‘R18' videos seems to have been lost between the Home Office and the Department of Culture Media and Sport.)

Supported by scientific research on the harmful effects of pornography we maintain that its widespread availability is having damaging effects on our society and our culture by contributing significantly to the rising incidence of sexual crime, the crisis in the nation's sexual health and the breakdown of family life that is evident in Britain today which you will know is costing huge sums of tax payers money in failing attempts to remedy the worsening situation.

Our concern, as is yours, is with obscene and violent imagery that undermines human dignity and respect for others. If the international community is serious about protecting the health and morals of the young and the vulnerable and protecting them from harmful and offensive material on the Internet, we believe that seriously effective measures are urgently needed. We look forward to hearing from you that Britain will lead strong representation in Tunis next month along the lines we have proposed above.

The Home Office and Scottish Executive have announced plans to create new offences relating to violent and abusive pornography on the Internet. The Consultation on the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Material closed on 2 December 2005.

From Ofcom's Broadcasting Code1.24 Premium subscription services and pay per view/night services may broadcast ‘adult-sex' material between 2200 and 0530 provided that in addition to other protections mentioned above:

Premium subscription services and pay per view/night services may broadcast ‘adult-sex' material between 2200 and 0530 provided that in addition to other protections mentioned above:

· there is a mandatory PIN protected encryption system, or other equivalent protection, that seeks satisfactorily to restrict access solely to those authorised to view; and

· there are measures in place that ensure that the subscriber is an adult.

1.25 BBFC R18-rated films or their equivalent must not be broadcast.

BBFC R18-rated films or their equivalent must not be broadcast.

Related media reports

Internet child porn block calls
Internet service providers have been urged to publicly declare whether they block the use of websites containing child pornography. Labour MP Margaret Moran (Luton South) says she has support from MPs of all parties for a law compelling such companies to publish their policies. Her Bill has been put forward under the ten-minute rule, which means it will be the subject of a brief debate on the floor of the Commons, but has no prospect of becoming law.
BBC News OnLine 26/10/2005

BSkyB agrees to buy Easynet
BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster has agreed to buy Easynet for £211million enabling access to 232 exchanges to reach almost one third of the UK residential population. For another £100 million it is calculated that the satellite broadcaster will be able to extend that reach to 60 per cent and longer-term it is likely to aim for 90 per cent.
The Times 22/10/2005

Culture Shock for Hollywood
Global Treaty aims to curb domination of American films and music
The French campaign against the global tide of American entertainment will take a big stride forward today when almost every nation backs the first world convention on protecting culture. Most of the 191 members of Unesco, the United Nations cultural agency, are expected to vote for a "convention on cultural diversity, which enshrines on a global level France's long standing policy of subsidising its arts and imposing quotas on American films and music.

The vote will be a big defeat for the United States, which held out against the plan with partial backing from Israel, Australia and Japan. The convention could now be cited by any country to justify protecting its entertainment industry with measures similar to those used by France if they are contested at the World Trade Organisation as barriers to free trade.

The convention has no real legal teeth and must be ratified by at least 30 Unesco members. The convention's notion of reinforcing national culture could be used to repress ethnic minorities or to cut off news on satellite television or discussion on the internet.
The Times 20/10/2005

UK resists radical net overhaul
The firm that runs .uk net domain name, Nominet, says there should be no radical change to the way that the internet is managed globally. Nominet said it would prefer a system which did not over-regulate the net. The issue of who controls the backbone of the net, such as domains and traffic routing, will be debated at a United Nations summit in Tunisia next month. The European Union wants control shifted away from the US to a more representative global body or forum. But the US wants to continue its historical supervisory role over the net and rejected the proposals last month.
BBC News online 20/10/2005

Crisis in Sexual Health
On Sunday 16 October Panorama on BBC1, Love Hurts, at 10.15pm investigated the spread of sexually transmitted infections and the resulting crisis in the country's sexual health clinics. In the course of the programme Andy Davies, the presenter, said: "We've just been taking more sexual partners and more sexual risks at a much earlier age.

Studies show that casual sex has become far more acceptable in recent years, something which the country's flourishing night time economy is stimulating rather nicely. Never has a generation been so at ease about discussing their sex lives in public." We spoke to a group out clubbing one night in Sheffield: "Do you think that your age group are more casual about partners?"

Excessive drink was nominated as a contributory factor which means sense going out of the window. A member of the group said: "Every single television programme you watch talks about sex, every magazine you read talks about sex come Friday night the last thing you care about after 12 pints is whether or not you're going to get an STD."
Panorama 16/10/2005

Under-age sexual activity
A quarter of girls first have intercourse before the age of 16; The number of 13 to 15-year-olds becoming pregnant rose by 2.5 per cent to 8,076 between 2002 and 2003; the number of abortions among under-14s rose by 6 per cent in 2004 to 157; new cases of the sexually transmitted infection Chlamydia increased by 8 per sent in 2004 to reach 103,932. Ten per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds may be carriers; Overall cases of all types of STIs have doubled among teenagers in ten years, with new cases among those under 20 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland up from 669,291 in 1991 to 1,332,910 in 2001.
The Times 19/10/2005

Police crackdown snares 900 paedophiles
More than 900 paedophiles have been trapped in a massive crackdown on internet child porn by a new hi-tech Scotland Yard unit. Most of those caught in Operation Pilsey were first-time offenders and were jailed for between six and 18 months, though 10 per cent of cases involved actual child abuse. Police now regularly monitor chat-rooms and paedophiles are increasingly being arrested in internet cafes where they thought they could operate with impunity. Police say: "We take the fight to the bad guys. If it's communication on the internet, we can handle it."
Sunday Express 16/10/2005

How Broadband TV will Bring a World of Choice
Revolution in home entertainment is on its way
It has been described as the biggest change to the way we watch television since the invention of the video recorder. Over the next couple of years broadband TV - television and video delivered over the internet - is expected to revolutionise home entertainment.

Not only will it offer an alternative to the ‘holy trinity' of terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasting, it is expected to give viewers an astonishing choice from all over the world. Although most programmes downloaded today over the internet are watched on computer screens, increasingly they will be channelled to ordinary television sets.

The BBC is so convinced by the technology that it has begun a trial of broadband TV. The 5,000 homes taking part in the experiment can download 200 programmes broadcast in the previous week. The corporation hopes to start broadcasting at least one of its main television channels over the internet next year.

Broadband TV has become a realistic option in Britain because of the growth of high speed internet connections. More than half of all connections to the internet are now made using broadband. Today broadband is used mostly for downloading music and high speed internet browsing. But increasingly it wll allow broadcasters to transmit television into the home via a personal computer or set-top box.
Daily Telegraph 15/10/2005

EU says Internet could Fall Apart
A battle has erupted over who governs the internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped to create and other countries demanding more control.

The European Commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart. At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the internet's address structure, called the domain name system, which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the Californian-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers under contract to the US department of commerce.

A meeting of officials in Geneva last month was meant to formulate a way of sharing internet governance which politicians could unveil at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. A European Union plan that goes a long way to meeting the demands of developing countries to make the governance more open collapsed in the face of US opposition.

ICANN's president, Paul Twomey, shares many of the US government concerns. He is adamant that his organisation should be allowed to evolve rather than be brushed aside in favour of some untried model of state-led internet governance. But designing new structures is exactly what the international community seems intent on doing.

At one end of the spectrum are Iran, Pakistan and other so-called control-oriented states that want to create a new governing council for the web to which ICANN would be accountable. The remit of this council seems broad enough to include questions of content, a worry for advocates of free speech on the web.
The Guardian 12/10/2005

‘Light touch' regulation for new media
Media secretary Tessa Jowell has indicated that the government is planning a "light touch" regime of regulation for the fast-growing broadband TV and mobile sectors. Speaking at the Creative Economy Conference yesterday, Jowel said: "We don't want to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut as regulation of these platforms will have an enormous impact on how they develop." She added the government was planning tougher anti-piracy measures to crack down on the growth of illegal downloading.
Broadcast 7/10/2005

Films ‘set to go on net'
Hollywood studios are likely to follow the record industry by making blockbuster films available for download over the internet within six months, according to Bob Wright, the Chairman of NBC Universal. Mr Wright said that offering films on demand over the web was "something we have to do" as part of the industry's battle against film piracy.

Piracy is estimated to cost Hollywood studios several billion dollars a year from sales of counterfeit films mass made in the Far East and Eastern Europe. Mr Wright said that film downloads could boost the returns of the big studios, whose income has suffered from a flat year at the box office. He also forecast that full-length feature films would be available to download on to mobile phones within a year.
The Times 5/10/2005

Cable TV giants link up to take on Sky
Cheaper internet access, phone calls and a TV revolution were promised yesterday as Britain's two main cable companies joined forces. The £4.4billion merger of NTL and Telewest will create Britain's second largest communications firm after BT. The business will be in a position to go head to head with both BT and BSkyB, possibly triggering a price war over services. With 5 million customers across the UK, the company will be the largest provider of high-speed internet access to homes in the UK with 2.5 million customers and the second largest provider for pay TV with 3.3 million customers. Major job-losses are expected as a result of the merger.
Daily Mail 4/10/2005

Ofcom chief sees self-regulation as the answer to internet worries
In an interview with Elizabeth Judge of The Times the Chief Executive of Ofcom, Stephen Carter, was asked about regulation of the Internet:  One prickly issue already firmly on the agenda is that of Europe wanting to begin to regulate the Internet - monitoring issues such as decency, accuracy and impartiality.

Ofcom has been adamantly against its own remit being extended to internet content. But Carter says that some form of self-regulation - where broadcasters and others agree among themselves to adhere to certain standards - could be necessary. "What about self regulation? Are there ways in which we can create codes of practice that are enforceable? Or conditions in licences which people are willing to sign up to?" he says.

Carter denies that things are out of control: "Protection of minors is a real issue but, as fast as technology is moving in an enabling sense, it can also move in a restrictive sense - with filtering devices, editing facilities and so on. It is not all one-way traffic, the question is to find the right balance."
The Times 3/10/2005

C4 is first with web only shows
Channel 4 has become the first UK broadcaster to commission standalone original programming exclusively for the Internet. The broadcaster kicked off the initiative this week with an online-only show from Ideal World about the recent Frankfurt Motor Show. More car-orientated content will be launched shortly. C4 managing director of new media said the shows, which will be unrelated to C4's TV content, will be divided into easy-to-navigate chapters and are unlikely to be longer than 15 minutes.
Broadcast 30/9/2005

BBC chief joins attack on EU plans for internet regulation
Mark Thompson, the Director General of the BBC, has attacked European Union plans to regulate the internet, arguing that self-regulation "would be a better option for the "new media".

Mr Thompson, making a keynote address to a European Union conference in Liverpool, joins a queue of British media organisations in criticising the latest regulatory scheme suggested by Brussels. "We need to be realistic about the practicality - even the desirability - of content enforcement in an on-demand, online world," Mr Thompson said, arguing that "public expectations of BBC online content are very different from their expectation of what they see on BBC television."

Other broadcasters are preparing to follow the BBC's criticism as part of what will amount to a concerted attack on the European proposals to bring ‘internet television' under the ambit of the Television Without Frontiers directive.
The Times 22/9/2005

Mobiles that give children a hotline to hard porn
Children are being exposed to hardcore pornography through the new 3G mobile phones. The problem has even reached the classroom, with teachers reporting youngsters passing around handsets carrying obscene images downloaded from the Internet.

Publicity for the phones boasts of high-speed web access and video clips, TV news bulletins and images of Premiership goals. However, 3G also provides instant access to pornography on the Internet, which is far more explicit than anything allowed by UK censors. Industry experts predict the UK market in mobile phone pornography could be worth almost £150 million a year by 2010.

Children's groups are alarmed that there is no way to effectively control access to the content. They are calling on the mobile networks to create a register of the identity, age and address of customers. This would allow a block to be put on handsets used by children. The mobile networks have set up a body to give age ratings for the content they sell.
Daily Mail 20/9/2005

Commenting today John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk said: ‘The complete answer to this problem is to strengthen the law against pornography so that much of the imagery that is now available becomes illegal in line with Parliament's intention in the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. The 3G mobile phones make more urgent the need for an international agreement on unacceptable Internet content.'

Pornography UK
27 X-rated channels make Britain shameful adult TV capital of Europe
Britain has become the television porn capital of Europe - with five times more adult only channels than anywhere else in the continent. UK viewers can now tune in to 27 dedicated porn channels, compared to just five in Germany - our nearest rival.

Research shows pornography was the fastest growing genre in television last year. The number of X-rated channels in Britain increased by a third - from 18 to 27 - to overtake the availability of children's channels, which number 24. Campaigners last night blamed the Government and regulators for allowing porn to ‘flood' our screens.

John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk said X-rated broadcasters are endlessly ‘testing the waters'. He added: ‘Some things they put on are in breach of generally accepted standards. But the failure of the Obscene Publications Act means pornographers know they can get away with pushing the boundaries and showing harder and harder material.

The porn industry has moved into TV in a big way - but with only minimal regulatory constraint.' The research, by the media consultancy Screen Digest, shows there are now 84 pornography channels across Europe, compared to just three a decade ago. Under Ofcom rules, pornography in Britain is far less explicit than in much of continental Europe. But broadcasters are lobbying to lift the current ban on R18 films and earlier this year Playboy TV was fined £25,000 by Ofcom for screening hard-core pornographic film in breach of the programme code.
Daily Mail 15/9/2005

BBC to classify its adult shows
The BBC is launching a cinema-style classification to warn parents of programmes containing sex, violence and strong language. Programmes suitable mostly for adults are to be labelled with the symbol "G" for "guidance". Initially the G-certificate will be available only to people viewing on their computers, but audiences using the next generation of televisions should be able to click on the symbol on their screens to be alerted to the adult content.

The symbol could eventually replace the traditional 9pm watershed. The corporation is introducing the system to coincide with the release of most of the output of BBC1, BBC2 and its other networks on the internet. Parents will be able to adjust computers so that children cannot watch G-rated programmes without permission.
Sunday Times 4/9/2005

Victory for mother who went to war on violent websites
The mother of murdered teacher Jane Longhurst has won her fight to outlaw the violent Internet pornography which obsessed her daughter's killer. Viewing vile images of rape and torture will now carry a jail term of up to three years. The change, unveiled yesterday by the Home Office, will bring the material in line with child pornography, which it is already an offence to download.

Jane's mother Liz launched her campaign for change 18 months ago following conviction of her daughter's killer. The Home Office's plans focus on trying to deter people from viewing the material. The offence of possession of violent and abusive pornography will mean any images acquired electronically will be illegal for the first time. The changes will go out for consultation until December and are expected to become law late next year or in 2007.

All other forms of pornographic material are currently controlled by the Obscene Publications Act 1959, but the Internet is not covered. Home Office minister Paul Goggins said: "This is material which is extremely offensive and it should have no place in our society."
Daily Mail 30/8/2005

Violent porn sites may be blocked
Viewing violent pornography on the Internet could be made as offence under measures being considered by the Government. The Home Office said that it is keen to strengthen the current legislation, which allows only for the closing down of British Internet sites hosting obscene material, such as necrophilia and strangulation. It is currently legal to view and download such images from overseas websites and there is no international agreement on what constitutes obscene - and therefore illegal - images. Last year Graham Coutts, who was addicted to violent internet pornography, was jailed for life for killing Jane Longhurst, a teacher. Since then her mother has campaigned for tougher restrictions.
The Times 15/8/2005

Coming son to a PC near you: the latest movies
Filmgoers were given their first glimpse yesterday of a world in which they can legally download mainstream films on to their computers. The British Internet Broadcasting Company (BiBC), a film download company, says that it is in negotiations with the holder of the rights to movies. The BiBC will be the first service in the world to provide mainstream feature films to paying customers is a deal goes ahead with Optimum Releasing, an independent British distributor. Distributors are concerned that selling films via the internet will damage the lucrative DVD business and encourage piracy. They also fear that they will lose control of the system that allows them to sell films country by country.
The Times 3/8/2005

Remote, No Control
The parents who don't know what their children are watching on TV
One parent in four has no idea what their children are watched on television last night, it has emerged. As the pressure on both parents to go out to work intensifies, many are leaving youngsters unsupervised in front of the TV for long periods.

Some fear, however, that they are being exposed to violent or sexually explicit programmes. A survey found that more than a third feel guilty about their inability to monitor what their children are watching. And a similar proportion admit that they do not trust their youngsters to restrict themselves to programmes suitable for their age. For the survey, research company TNS interviewed 356 families across the country. It found that two-thirds of children aged between 2 and 12 watch TV without supervision.
Daily Mail 25/8/2005

BSkyB to give parents power to block EPG
BSkyB is to give parents the ability to block out any channels from its EPG that they don't want their children to see. Sky deputy head of strategy Graham McWilliam, speaking at a Westminster Media Forum event this week said the move was in response to parents' concerns about controlling what their children can watch in digital homes.

As part of Sky's current reorganisation of its EPG, any channels that rely on adult material will be moved out of ‘general entertainment' and into the "adult" section of the EPG. Mr McWilliam said the technology, which will be introduced later this year, would allow parents to block particular channels - or even whole sections of the EPG - such as adult movies.
Broadcast 22/7/2005

Blocking on-line child pornography
This week, Parliament rose for the summer recess. When it returns in the early Autumn, it will consider a 10-Minute Rule Bill that was tabled this week by Labour MP Margaret Moran. The title is the Control of Internet Access (Child Pornography) Bill. So far, all we know is: "That leave will be given to bring in a Bill to require internet service providers and other commercial organisations providing access to the internet to declare whether or not they have taken steps to prevent access to web sites containing indecent images of children; and for connected purposes."

It is clear that this Bill is inspired by the success of BT's Cleanfeed operation. This is a process whereby BT blocks access by its Internet customers to any sites determined by the Internet Watch Foundation - which I chair - to host child abuse images which it is illegal for UK citizens to view. This initiative has received support from Government and recognition at the Internet Service Providers' Association annual award ceremony, but it has been controversial in some quarters of the industry.
Roger Darlington Ofcom Consumer Panel member for England 22/7/2005

Original stories

115,000 try to access child porn sites daily
BT is blocking more than 23,000 attempts a day to view child pornography on the Internet it emerged yesterday. Since installing technology that prevents its 2.8 million Web subscribers from accessing blacklisted websites, the company has seen shocking evidence of the demand for obscene images of children. Since BT controls only a fifth of the UK Internet market, the true number of ‘hits' is likely to be far higher at around 115,000 a day as perverts use other Internet service providers to view the sites. A BT spokesman said it was in discussions with its rivals about making the filter more widely available on a non-profit basis.
Daily Mail 21/7/2004

Internet porn needs worldwide policing
Britain's most techno friendly MP has called for tough new Internet legislation to catch child pornographers. Derek Wyatt, member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, wants a world-wide force set up to police the Internet's fraud and pornography. Mr Wyatt is chairman of the all-party internet group.

He said: "We need to have a governing body for the Internet with a memorandum of understanding for each government to accept. At the moment all the organisations we have are run by interested parties." He said governments that signed up to the agreement would then be honour bound to extradite suspected child pornographers. Much of the pornography starts in America, but is then distributed via sites based in China and Japan.

Mr Wyatt said the authorities could ultimately hold internet providers to account if they allowed unacceptable material to appear.
Kent on Sunday 26/9/2004

EU regulating the Internet?
This week the EU admitted that it wanted to start regulating internet content, or more accurately, television flowing over the world wide web. Of course, the European Commission did not put it like that, and instead referred to updating its existing broadcast regulations to include "all audio visual content services" including television downloads - small today but big tomorrow. Traditionally, broadcast regulation is pretty strict, with rules governing harm and offence, as well as accuracy and impartiality and all sorts of other things. The EU does now want to make TV downloads subject to these precisely, but its rules set a minimum standard for member states. The Commission is particularly interested in protection of minors and a right to reply.
The Times 15/7/2005 (analysis by Dan Sabbagh)

Bush administration to keep control of internet's central computers
The Bush Administration has decided to retain control over the principal computers which control internet traffic in a move likely to prompt global opposition, it was claimed yesterday. The US had pledged to turn control of the 13 computers known as root servers - which inform web browsers and email programs how to direct internet traffic - over to a private, international body. But on Thursday the US reversed its position, announcing that it will maintain control of the computers because of growing security threats and the increased reliance on the internet for global communications.
The Guardian 2/7/2005

mediawatch-uk is grateful to Roger Darlington, a member of Ofcom's Consumer Panel and Chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation, for drawing attention to the above article on his website Mr Darlington says:

"We are frequently told that the Internet is a new kind of communications medium that is not - an cannot - be controlled by anyone, whether individuals, corporations or governments. This, of course, is nonsense.  Somebody has to be running the Internet, otherwise it would not be possible for some 600m users to be able to communicate almost instantaneously to every country of the world at every second of the day.

There are three main bodies that currently control the global Internet: The Internet Society; The World Wide Web Consortium and The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Of course, hardly any Internet users have actually heard of these bodies and only a tiny, tiny fraction has any chance of influencing them. Overwhelmingly they are made up of representatives of powerful corporations, mostly American-owned."

Ofcom's Consumer Panel: www.ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk

The Internet Society at: www.isoc.org

Visit the World Wide Web Consortium at: www.w3.org

Visit the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at: www.icann.org

More than 3 in 4 adults support U.S. Justice Department's crackdown on illegal obscenity
More than three out of four (77%) adult Americans support the Justice Department's effort to enforce federal obscenity laws, according to results of a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Morality in Media November 4 to 7. Fewer than one in five (19%) of U.S. adults oppose new enforcement efforts. The question asked and overall breakdown of responses are as follows:

"The Supreme Court has held that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment and that obscenity laws can be enforced against commercial distributors of hardcore pornography. During the past decade, hardcore pornographic videotapes and DVDs, films on pay TV channels, and Internet websites have proliferated. Soon, cell phones that combine voice with pictures will make it even easier to access hardcore pornography.

Recently, the Justice Department established a task force to prosecute obscenity crimes, and the FBI recruited additional agents to investigate these crimes. Do you support or oppose this new effort to enforce federal obscenity laws?"

• 77% Total Support;
  
• 19% Total Oppose
• 62% Strongly support;
  
• 14% Somewhat support;
  
• 8% Somewhat oppose;
  
• 11% Strongly Oppose;
  
• 4% Not sure/No opinion;
  
• --% Refused (volunteered)
  

The results come from Harris Interactive's National QuorumTM, a bi-weekly omnibus survey conducted among adults living in the contiguous United States. The survey was conducted among 1,005 adults 18 years of age or older and is representative of the U.S. population. The survey has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

There was strong support across all demographic groups examined for increase enforcement, with at least 59% in each of the 102 groups examined.

Robert W. Peters, President of Morality in Media, commented:

"Those who defend hardcore pornography, whether in court or in the court of public opinion, point to the proliferation of this vile material as ‘proof' either that everyone is viewing it or that people no longer deem hardcore pornography unacceptable. The porn defenders overlook at least three factors.

"First, much if not most hardcore pornography is consumed by a relatively small percentage of males who are addicted to it. Second, just because a person experiments with hardcore pornography does not mean he or she has become a devotee of it, especially when pornographers promote their products relentlessly and by deceptive means. Third, just because a person views some hardcore pornography does not mean he or she finds all of it acceptable or thinks more of it would be a good thing.

"Defenders of hardcore pornography also say that the Justice Department's efforts to curb the sale of obscene materials is a waste of resources. They overlook the reality that the floodtide of hardcore pornography pouring into our communities and homes is adversely impacting society in various ways, including:

· Contributing to teen promiscuity
· Contributing to the break-up of marriages
· Contributing to sex crimes against adults and children
· Contributing to on-the-job sexual harassment
· Contributing to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS
· Contributing to the coffers of organized crime
· Contributing to a tarnished "anything immoral goes" national image.

"They also overlook the fact that when obscenity laws are effectively enforced, the resulting fines and forfeitures will offset most if not all of the cost of enforcement.

"Headquartered in New York City, MORALITY IN MEDIA works through constitutional means to curb traffic in illegal obscenity. MIM operates the www.obscenitycrimes.org  website, where citizens can report possible violations of federal Internet obscenity laws, and the National Obscenity Law Center, a resource for prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and legislators.
Morality in Media news release NEW YORK 15/11/2005