Pornhub says it "strongly opposes" the Government's proposed crackdown on porn.
Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin has warned of an "avalanche of pornography" bombarding young people, and the Government is considering sweeping changes to stop kids accessing adult material.
This could include a New Zealand-wide R18 porn filter - where residents will have to provide age ID to have access to porn websites.
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"We have to move quickly and as quickly as possible and in the most appropriate way to make sure we are protecting our children and young people," Martin said at the end of last month.
But Pornhub says it already takes action to prevent young people from accessing its material, and the law changes could lead to fewer parents monitoring what their children are watching.
"We strongly oppose the New Zealand Government making any legislative changes as it pertains to how people watch porn," Pornhub vice president Corey Price told Newshub.
"It is our corporate responsibility as part of the global tech community to promote ethical and responsible behaviour."
It says its website is "fully RTA [Restricted to Adults] compliant", which allows every page to be blocked by the simple parental control tools.
"We firmly believe that parents are best placed to police their children's online activity using the plethora of tools already available in modern operating systems and devices," Price told Newshub.
"Laws like these have the potential to send a message to parents that they no longer need to monitor their children's online activity."
What is the Government proposing?
Advice to Martin obtained by Newshub under the Official Information Act suggests the current laws around classification and broadcasting legislation are out-of-date.
The different options being looked at that could make it more difficult to access explicit content include:
- Online Public Areas Safety Bill: Require all retail shops, schools, businesses and public areas which provide free Wi-Fi to the public to ensure appropriate filtering.
- Online Child Safety Bill: Require internet service providers to make available to all subscribers technology which will allow the parents to monitor and control child's access.
- Educating Parents on the Harms of Pornography Bill: Directing the state department of education to take a direct role in educating parents of enrolled students on the harms of pornographic material.
- Government Accountability Trust and Etiquette Bill: Require Govemment agencies to adopt policies that prohibit users from accessing the material.
- School Internet Filtering Accountability Bill: Require schools to adopt policies and implement filters to protect students from pornographic material while using school devices or networks.
- R18 access to porn websites: Residents will have to provide age ID to have access.
- Expanding Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System: Internal Affairs already has a targeted filter around child exploitation, child slavery, child sex offences and paedophilia.
Martin isn't ruling anything out.
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"I definitely don't want to discount any ideas from anybody that might better protect our children and young people from what is this avalanche of pornography that they are being bombarded with currently," she told Newshub.
"I believe this is at a pivotal place for our young people. We've ignored it because we didn't want to talk about - when I say we I mean my generation and those older than me - and we had this idea that it's what it used to be like in the 1970s and 1980s."
A 'porn working party' has been set up to investigate the impacts of New Zealanders' use of pornography in the modern digital environment, coordinate work and advice relevant to this issue between agencies and to provide a centre of knowledge of Government on the subject and advice on potential policy response.
The Office of Film and Literature Classification leads the group, and other agencies involved are Netsafe, the Ministry of Health, Internal Affairs, the Ministry for Women, the Ministry of Social Development, ACC and the Ministry of Education.
Newshub.
