• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, October 18, 2019

No, the really odd position is that the Government made it an election pledge to tighten up online protection. A new regulator was mooted and there was considerable talk about the need to protect children, in particular.

Hence, we have had two years of debate around online harms, and the Government completed a period of industry consultation this summer over its position on making the internet safer.

Yet having already been delayed, we found out this week that the decision to enforce age verification checks on pornography sites has been dropped. It was done rather quietly, wasn't it? Please feel free to call me a cynic, but I have been in the journalism game too long not to suspect a development being timed to happen alongside a massive event so it gets little coverage.

This week, of course, we have had Boris pressing the flesh in Brussels with all eyes on the discussions to secure a deal, followed by endless debate on whether it will get through parliament.

I don't know about you, but if I were dropping a major part of my online harms strategy, I think this is the week I would have picked. It got very little coverage, given that there was only one real story in town all week. In fact, the Culture Secretary, Nicki Morgan, got more column inches for starting a debate about BBC financing by stating she was open at alternatives to the licence fee -- even though it is enshrined in law until 2027.  

The stories that did appear, well away from the headlines, tended to see the rules as unenforceable.

It was accepted that experts were correct and that people can avoid identifying that they are from the UK, and so need to enter a credit card to register, by simply going through a virtual private network (VPN).

It's a valid point, but for me, you cannot drop laws on the basis that people can avoid them. You would have no CCTV on the assumption people can wear a hat or no speeding cameras because drivers can pretend their car was stolen at the time of an offence.

As for the Government, they are not giving much away, saying it will incorporate protecting minors from adult material within upcoming proposals on online safety. Other than forcing someone to prove they are an adult before they view porn, it is hard to see what is left for the Government to propose. 

So, we have a cabinet that has been talking tough on protecting minors online as long as that involves tearing a strip of the social media companies and getting a round of applause. As soon as we get to the nitty gritty of enforcing action against the porn industry, the politicians fold quicker than Superman on laundry day. 

When it comes to online safety it seems the current political will struggles to get beyond bashing the tech giants and threatening the creation of a regulator. Keeping to a promise to tackle an issue, that earned a lot of praise at the time, just seems beyond the cabinet.

No doubt, if a regulator is created, this will be put on them to solve after the policy was announced with great fanfare, and then dropped in a very busy news week.