Society is gradually waking up to how pornography can “destroy people’s lives”, a former porn addict has said.
Speaking on podcast The Van Maren Show, Joshua Gilman said apathy has waned over the last decade as several US states are now introducing robust age-verification measures to protect kids from accessing online porn.
The Director of Strength to Fight, which campaigns for “a porn-free Canada”, emphasised the basic need “to protect children”, but added that the measures also benefit adults.
Excuses
Gilman reflected: “We have to accept that we as a society who have normalised pornography, as people who have made excuses for it in our life, have been contributing to the abuse and degradation of other people”.
He urged the public to help tackle the porn industry by contacting their political representatives and friends to share the importance of implementing robust age-verification measures.
Gilman said: “I don’t think you’ll never eradicate humans using other humans for profit, they always find another way, but the ability to not make it socially acceptable like we’ve done with cigarettes is obvious to me.”
Online Safety Bill
The UK Government’s Online Safety Bill is set to become law, after final amendments were agreed by Parliament last month.
The amended Bill, which now awaits Royal Assent, requires both social media and pornography websites to implement age-verification measures that are “highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child”.
Conservative MP Miriam Cates told the House of Commons the Bill is an “important step forward”, but warned the Government not to be so “naïve” as “to expect this Goliath of an industry to roll over and keep children safe” from porn.
She said: “There is much more to be done”, urging the Government to consider how it can further “disrupt the business model” of pornography websites.
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