LONDON—The official figures indicate that over the course of three months, there have been well over 4,000 attempts made to access online porn by employees working at British media regulator Ofcom. So who the bloody hell is going to regulate the regulators?, argues conservative think tank Parliament Street.
Ofcom says it’s much ado about nothing, and offers a breakdown of disciplinary actions taken against employees. According to the Shropshire Star, “One member of staff at Ofcom has been dismissed in the last five years for computer misuse, which constituted a ‘serious breach’ of the regulator's policies, according to its records. Another employee has been issued a final written warning for downloading a film.
“Ofcom said neither of these cases related to adult material,” it added.
Of the attempts to access adult content, Ofcom explained that its “IT systems captured a diverse range of content of ‘varying degrees of sexual explicitness,’ which could range from The Sun's topless page three pin-ups to ‘explicit pornographic content.’” It also said that the 4,234 recorded attempts could also be inflated due to pop-ups or pop-unders being counted.
But a Parliament Street spokesperson said the data nonetheless raises some serious questions. "Clearly Ofcom needs to get to grips with this problem to ensure staff know not to try and access explicit content online," argued director of technology Steven George-Hilley. "As a taxpayer-funded regulator of offensive content, there should be stiff penalties in place for employees who breach corporation guidelines."
For a think tank, however, Parliament Street’s reasoning is more than a little suspect, and reeks of political motive rather than a genuine concern about the regulator’s activities. Simply put, how can they regulate the stuff if they don’t access it?
Or as Ofcom itself explained, "Ofcom has a statutory duty to protect children from adult content. This requires staff in a range of departments to legitimately access online adult material. The number of times staff have accessed online adult content is consistent with meeting this duty.
"For example, Ofcom's duty to secure broadcasting standards requires us to access and review online content that is promoted on adult TV channels, to ensure compliance with relevant rules.
"Our duty regarding TV delivered over the internet requires us to access online adult content to assess the adequacy of the restrictions to protect children viewing such material.
"Ofcom is on the board of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which aims to protect children from access to pornography. We have also been working to ensure that children are protected from pornographic material accessed from mobile devices.
"It is also important to note that Ofcom's web filtering program captures images of nudity, such as someone wearing a swimsuit or page three, as well as pornographic content."
Don’t expect UK authoritarians to appreciate the detailed explanation, however; they’re too busy fomenting fear to realize that regulators regulating is not another sign of the apocalypse.
