Pornography changes the brain, impacting attitudes and behaviours and promoting harmful views about sex. The harms of pornography are well-documented, particularly for children. A recent report by the United Kingdom’s Children’s Commissioner noted the link between pornography exposure and child sexual abuse perpetrated by other children.
Some jurisdictions are now rightly taking a public health approach to pornography, seeking to emphasize the negative consequences on society of viewing pornography. Other jurisdictions, including the U.K., France, and multiple American states, have implemented age verification laws seeking to protect children from the devastating consequences of pornography. Canada has fallen behind and needs to take steps to address online pornography.
A recent Canadian attempt at age verification died on the order paper due to the recent election call, but had been supported by the Conservatives, NDP, Bloc, Greens, and a handful of Liberals. Following the election, however, a new bill, S-209, was promptly introduced in the Senate, seeking to implement age verification or age estimation for anyone viewing pornography.
Canadians challenge age verification requirements with a variety of arguments, mainly focusing on parental responsibility and freedom of expression. But those arguments do not negate the need for the government to protect Canadian children from the consequences of pornography.
Parental responsibility
Former chair of the CRTC, Peter Menzies, argues that “The state has no business in the WiFi of the nation” and that government should simply “empower parents and families with the equipment they need to control their household’s internet access as they see fit.” Of course, children need to be protected from pornography, the argument goes, but the risks of government intervention are too great.
Parents do need to understand the impact of pornography and take preventive steps. For example, parents can restrict access on household devices, control privacy settings on their child’s social media account, or be notified when there is activity on their credit card on an adult-only website. Yet governments can and should do more. Filters and restrictions on devices at home can help, but kids can still be exposed to pornography outside the home or on other devices. One study estimates that at least 17 households in a child’s network would need filtering technology to protect a child from encountering pornography.
Pornography companies have no meaningful restrictions in place for viewers. Parents cannot hold porn companies accountable for failing to protect Canadian children. Governments can.In response to recent age verification legislation in France, the owner of Pornhub and other sites blocked access to its sites rather than face the costs of implementing proper age verification processes. The French gender equality minister praised that decision on X, noting that as a result, there would be less violent, degrading, and humiliating pornography available to minors in the country. However, Pornhub has resumed operating in France due to the Paris Administrative Court ruling against the law, a decision the government intends to appeal.
Freedom of expression
Another key argument against age verification is freedom of expression. Let’s start by noting that images as expression and words as expression differ in significant ways, although both can present ideas, and both can be obscene. But images can have a different kind of impact. A gory or pornographic image might instantly scar a child’s psyche, for example, in a way that a paragraph describing the same image would not. While words represent beliefs and encourage or discourage certain actions in the abstract, pornography is the visible representation of an action.Harvard law professor Catharine MacKinnon clarifies this in her book Only Words: “Nothing else does what pornography does…What pornography does, it does in the real world, not only in the mind.” Pornography is not only about expressing ideas or creating art. Rather, pornography depicts real actions, many of which are violent or illegal, and all of which have a significant negative effect on children.
This photo, taken in London, July 8, 2019, shows the website for an age verification system. Kelvin Chan/AP Photo.
Some may worry that age verification for pornography may lead to censorship of constitutionally protected free speech, such as war coverage or discussion about eating disorders. After all, these could arguably disturb or harm children, so why not censor them too?
But pornography can be differentiated from these other topics. Assuming the concern is with how images are used to inform people about and generate discussion on those issues, we can observe that both the purpose for and the nature of the images used serve to distinguish his examples from pornography. Pornography is not made to educate or inform people of important, if disturbing or difficult matters. And we expect even war coverage to limit what it shows, or at least to provide graphic content warnings. Furthermore, the purpose of showing images of war or a war crime is not to titillate or to promote what is depicted.
The freedom to engage in the democratic exchange of ideas—to share one’s thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, as the Charter puts it—is not threatened by age-based restrictions on access to pornography. And as the Supreme Court of the United States recently noted in a decision upholding Texas’ age verification law, “Adults have no First Amendment [free speech] right to avoid age verification.” Even where free speech considerations are relevant, they are not the only important factor. We must not fail Canadian children simply because adults want ease of production and access to any form of expression.
Some people may fear their viewing habits being exposed if they share information with online platforms. But it’s not very different from using ID to get into a public age-restricted facility. In the past, a person might need to go out in public to pick up a pornography magazine, at risk of being identified. Today, online pornography is not only much more extreme but also much more private. Concern about having viewing habits exposed illustrates that viewing pornography may make people feel ashamed, but also indicates a distrust of pornography companies. Most people are not concerned about giving Amazon or Netflix identifying information. People can choose which sites they use or don’t use, also depending on the level of privacy and trust.
Why Canada needs effective age verification
Because pornography is all over the internet, limiting pornography consumption is not as simple as restricting specific websites. X was the platform where young people were most likely to see pornography in a 2023 study (41 percent). X policies permit pornography but supposedly do not allow children to view explicit content. Instagram (33 percent) and Snapchat (32 percent) closely followed pornography sites (37 percent), even though these social media sites officially ban pornography on their platforms.
Children are increasingly exposed to pornography at younger and younger ages. Recent research by the U.K.’s Children’s Commissioner revealed that the average age at which children first see pornography is 13. Ten percent had seen pornography by age 9, 27 percent by age 11, and 79 percent had encountered violent pornography before the age of 18. Thirty-eight percent of survey respondents said they had come across pornography accidentally.
An appropriate government response
Essayist and publisher Irving Kristol, in a New York Times article titled “Pornography, Obscenity, and Censorship,” looks more broadly at the question of democracy and pornography. He argues that, prior to the 20th century, democracy was seen as a form of self-government. This conceptualization “was not about to permit people capriciously to corrupt themselves. Or, to put it more precisely: in this version of democracy, the people took some care not to let themselves be governed by the more infantile and [irrational] parts of themselves.” Consider censorship in other cases, such as warning labels on cigarettes or limitations on drugs. Anyone troubled by pornography’s accessibility and impact on young people today should want the government’s help in combating this extensive problem.
Government responses to online pornography are critical and can be appropriately applied while recognizing concerns about parental responsibility and freedom of expression. The Council of Europe, in its recommendations and support for age verification tools, stated that combating childhood exposure to pornography “needs to become a priority for society as a whole, with media acting responsibly, and with governments being held accountable for what they do to address this concern.”
Neither the government, parents, nor individuals can combat the problems of pornography for children on their own. They must work together to solve the problems and to protect Canadian children. Age verification is the perfect place to start.
