Now South Africa Proposes Blocking All Online Porn ‘By Default’

CYBERSPACE—With the United Kingdom set to implement a nationwide block on porn sites that would require “age verification” documents to lift, starting on July 15, as AVN.com has reported, another country may now be lining up to ban online porn: South Africa. The South African Law and Reform Commission released a report this week on “Pornography and Children” that goes well beyond the age verification requirements coming to the U.K., or even the blocking of hundreds of adult sites ordered by courts in India, as AVN.com has also previously reported.  In fact, the South African proposal would not only require all internet-connected devices to include built-in porn-blocking technology, but it would make it a crime to bypass the anti-porn tech, according to a report on the proposal by the South African site Business Tech.  But the proposal doesn’t stop there. Under the Law and Reform Commission recommendations, “all acts of exposing children to pornography and content not suitable for children, in whatever manner,” would be criminalized.  How the commission proposes defining “content not suitable for children” is unclear, however. “One of the risks that children face when engaging with the mass media and using electronic tools in South Africa is that they may intentionally seek or unintentionally be exposed to pornography or child pornography (described as child sexual abuse material in this discussion paper). This material may be illegal or may only be legal for adults,” the commission’s paper says, as quoted by Tech Financials.  The commission, which said its report was intended as a “discussion paper” intended to open dialogue on porn, left open the possibility that adults over age 18 would be able to circumvent the mandatory porn blocking technology if they provide age-verification data. But allowing a child under 18 access to a device on which the porn block has been disabled would also be a crime. Photo By Niele / Wikimedia Commons Public Domain