Well, well, well. According to research by the children’s commissioner for England, children’s exposure to pornography has increased since the Online Safety Act came into effect. Dame Rachel de Souza noted that a survey had found that more young people said they’d been exposed to porn before the age of 18 after the new rules were introduced compared to the results of a similar survey in 2023. How very interesting.
Over a quarter of people said they had seen online porn by the age of 11 – with some rather disturbingly noting they were ‘aged six or younger’ when asked about their first exposure. Seven out of ten young people said they had seen porn before the age of 18 in 2025, compared with 64 per cent two years ago. The data – taken from a survey of 1,010 children and young people aged 16-21 – found that more vulnerable children now than before said they had been exposed to porn earlier, while the latest survey found that six in ten respondents said they had seen porn online by accident compared to four in ten in 2023. And the rise of social media has taken its toll, with Elon Musk’s Twitter being the most common source of pornography for children. Good heavens…
A government spokesperson said: ‘Children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for too long, bombarded with pornography and harmful content that can scar them for life. The Online Safety Act is changing that.’ But Mr S isn’t so sure. Reform leader Nigel Farage was blasted by Labour after a recent press conference for being on the ‘same side as Jimmy Savile’ after he said his party would repeal the OSA if it got into power. Science Secretary Peter Kyle was first to take aim Farage and No. 10 doubled down. The Reform leader and his head of DOGE Zia Yusuf have both said there must be an alternative way to protect children on the internet, pointing out that young people are more adept at using VPNs to get around online restrictions than the people writing the legislation. And certainly this latest survey weakens the Labour lot’s defence of the controversial law…
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