London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Commercial pornography distributors could do more to stop UK children seeing explicit sexual images through the internet and mobile devices, according to a new report commissioned by the government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

A panel of experts, including Dr Cicely Marston from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, has laid out the scale of the problem and highlighted possible measures to limit and mitigate risks, including the wider use of age verification tools and better sexuality education.

Published alongside a new government consultation, the panel's report sets out the many ways in which children are encountering online pornography. To date, most interventions in the UK aimed at stopping minors accessing potentially harmful content have been voluntary. However, this report highlights that there are gaps where government might intervene, including addressing the obvious mismatch between the regulation governing distribution of offline pornography and its equivalent for online material. 

The report reviewed UK and international data, but notes that the ethical and practical challenges of studying children's experiences means it is difficult to know either the extent to which children are accessing pornography or the effects of viewing pornography.

The authors suggest social and educational interventions are needed, and point out that technical limits to prevent children accessing pornography will be more effective in stopping young people viewing material accidentally, rather than when they deliberately seek it out.

Dr Marston, Senior Lecturer in Social Science, said: "The specific harms from pornography are unclear, however there is a key distinction between children's accidental access to porn and deliberate access. The former may be possible to fix, the latter seems near-impossible to prevent given that pornography is legal for adults to view. This makes it even more important to ensure that children and young people receive good, comprehensive sexuality education in school that can help them to understand how pornography does not represent real-life sex."

The various routes of access to pornography all provide their own challenges. One UK study in the report identifies pop-up adverts as the most common source of sexual images among the 13-14 year age group. The report says one approach could be a greater use of ad-blocking tools in households, but this is problematic for content-producers who rely on advertising revenue. Other common online routes include video and photo-sharing sites and social media sites, and there is also evidence of children sharing sexual images via mobile phones.

Apps like WhatsApp or Snapchat, both used by large numbers of children and young people, especially those in their early teens, are difficult to regulate and the minimum age requirements are not well-enforced. Popular entertainment sources such as YouTube are also highlighted as being almost impossible to moderate.

Study lead author Dr Victoria Nash, of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, said: "It is important to remember that there is no magic bullet here so multiple interventions are needed. The viewing of sexually explicit imagery is not just an 'online' problem as such imagery is rife within the wider popular culture. Filters are an important tool to help parents limit children's exposure to pornography online but given the variety of ways in which this material can be accessed it's really crucial we look at other measures such as education and age verification."

Full report

• Identifying the Routes by which Children View Pornography Online: Implications for Future Policy-makers Seeking to Limit Viewing (pdf)