BDSM MEDIA NEWS!!!!
April 10, 2014
Niche pornographers feel unduly targeted by censors.
Source: Wired.co.uk. - Wired.co.uk - UK
UK - Are purveyors of niche pornography, outside of the mainstream, being unduly targeted by UK TV on-demand regulator Atvod? One femdom site owner believes the answer is a resounding yes.
"I believe that there is some kind of hunt going on at the moment," Itziar Urrutia tells Wired.co.uk.
Urrutia operates an
adult fetish site, that is less blondes in schoolgirl skirts, and more whips, chains and latex. She is a visual performance artist, and her persona du jour is that of the jail keeper at the Urban Chick Supremacy Cell, "a fictional femdom (female dominance) terror cell that seeks to chase smug city boys and other male vermin and destroy patriarchy". Since June 2013, however, the tables have somewhat turned and Urrutia has found herself the hunted party.
It was then she received a letter telling her she had breached rules 1, 4 and 11 of TV on-demand regulator Atvod's very minimalistic list of
rules, (there are 13, and 9 are administrative). One and four relate to Atvod's categorisation of her ten hours of video, published behind a membership paywall, as a TV-like service akin to 4OD -- which means Atvod gets to charge a regulatory fee. Rule 11, accuses Urrutia of hosting "material which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of persons under the age of eighteen", something that is outlawed unless under age verification controls, according to the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which only the UK seems to have concluded relates to all material of an R18 nature.
"There isn't tolerance for porn in this country," Jerry Barnett, founder of Sex & Censorship, tells Wired.co.uk. This is where we come to the chase.
"Independent producers are being hunted down, while the corporate, mainstream pornography studios -- owned by the same media that sells papers by pandering to the current 'think of the children' moral panic -- continue," says Urrutia.
The statement might sound alarmist in itself. But not so much when you look to one of the adult content producers working in synchronisation with Atvod. Portland TV, whose managing director -- a former Atvod board member -- has spoken of the benefits of regulation to the industry, is owned by Northern & Shell. Northern & Shell owns public Channel 5. It also owns the
Daily Express,
Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday , papers that routinely like to use the words "seedy" and "shame" in the same sentence as anything to do with pornography.
Paradoxically, they also
write, a
lot, about
porn.
For his part, however, Atvod CEO Peter Johnson disagrees With Urrutia's suggestion that small operators providing a view outside of the mainstream are being disproportionately targeted while large corporations are given the leniency needed to survive.
"This is completely untrue and unfounded," Atvod's CEO tells Wired.co.uk. "We apply the rules equally to those we regulate, regardless of their size."
If there really is an anti-porn agenda in this country, it's hard to see where it's coming from. Between the historical western adoption of the view that sexuality is sinister, regulators telling us pornography is harmful to children and governments reiterating that fact with nonspecific laws, it's hard to see where the root lies.
Generation XXX: Why we're afraid of internet porn?
What has been clear the last few weeks, is that Atvod feels bold enough in its position to demand the UK change the law to enable it to regualte the entire globe's pornography output -- if it's available to view online in the UK. And what's also starkly clear, is that the government is regurgitating Atvod's mantra. On 19 March, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee released its
online safety report, which dealt
solely with children and spoke of the harm viewing pornography online can do, (read "
Why we're afraid of internet porn." for an alternate academic view that stipulates the exact opposite). It called for gambling site-style age verification measures and blocks on sites that fail to comply. Less than ten days later, Atvod released a report claiming 44,000 primary school children had seen "adult content" in December 2013, and called for the exact
same measures.
"It's just laziness," says Ian Walden, a professor of Information and Communications Law. The government did not want to deal with regulation when the EU Directive was brought in, and outsourced the job to Atvod under an industry self-regulation structure. To stray from the norm, away from what the government-designated regulator rules (and recommends to the
Culture, Media and Sport Committee.), could be politically risky.
"The other classic example is of course the evidence suggesting rendering drugs illegal doesn't actually stop the sale of drugs, it just creates a criminal market for them," says Walden. "The police has regularly come out and said we overcriminalise drug taking, but no politician has come out -- well only very braves ones -- to say yes let's liberalise drugs. That 'precautionary principle' is actually about politicians taking precaution for their future elections."
Walden is referring to the wording in Atvod's rulings on services it challenges. "Atvod has confirmed its precautionary approach to its interpretation of the wording of the Act," states the regulator. This is why, in its rather detailed and lengthy description of why Urrutia's site is harmful (you can read it
here, -- warning, there's a hook involved) Atvod concludes that the content "goes beyond that which is likely to be classified by the BBFC at any category including R18". It is insinuating the content is illegal, under the Obscenity Act.
"I don't know a single adult producer who feels comfortable about the possibility of making our content available to minors," Urrutia tells us. "However, Atvod has been very vocal at conferences and in interviews, accusing perfectly legal, responsible, well-established adult businesses, of turning a blind eye to it."
When Urrutia received her Atvod letter, she removed stills and sample clips that weren't behind a paywall. She had trusted her payment company to do the rest, but there is no way of verifying age through debit cards, which most of her customers were using.
"These companies answer ultimately to Visa, and the guidelines and requirements to be accepted as a customer, are draconian. Visa's idea of what adult content is permissible, is far more stringent than UK legislation [and includes] activities that aren't in themselves illegal to perform, watch or photograph/record."
Urrutia is trying to contest Atvod's ruling, but has closed her site for now "because who wants to be accused of selling porn to minors, even though the possibility is infinitesimally small?"
She contests that independent players are more vulnerable, and points to rumours that some producers are left alone simply after paying the Atvod fee. She adds peers that have changed their sites to only include credit cards have seen profits plummet to ten to 20 percent what they were.
"For me, it's abundantly clear that the purpose of Atvod is to close down the UK-based adult industry. There is no better way to smear it, than to imply that we sell porn to minors."
Atvod's Johnson tells Wired.co.uk: "The claims are completely groundless. Atvod has not argued for pornography to be banned, we have simply argued for hardcore pornography to be kept out of reach of children, just as it is in the offline world."
This is true. Hardcore pornography is banned from UK television. Ofcom told Wired.co.uk this position was most recently backed up by
a 2005 consultation, that looked at related academic evidence. That report pointed to potential effects, such as minors becoming sexually active early or "long term or frequent exposure" effecting relationships (evidence it says is inconclusive). However, it concludes: "Most researchers stress that good sex education and an open relationship with parents in issues of sexuality are more important for the child to develop normally than a ban on R18 material… Studies that refer to R18 porn often find no effects or sometimes even positive effects. The conclusion that is drawn by many researchers is that it is the violence and not the sexual content that causes aggressive behaviour."
Urrutia argues that another "moral" argument used by the likes of Atvod relates to the protection of women, and the prevention of women being exploited, abused and objectified in porn, which could ultimately lead to a skewed perspective among those that witness it at a young age (some of the "inconclusive" arguments Ofcom featured in its report).
"Many of the studios targeted by Atvod are, like mine, small independent studios run and owned by women." She points to the 89 websites targeted by Atvod last year, of which she says perhaps only five to eight did not constitute femdom.
"It's hard not to feel that there is witchhunt against small, independent, non-mainstream forms of pornography that often challenge assumed notions of normativity and gender roles. Femdom porn is a very niche sexual preference. UK-based producers are, like me, small, independent and self-employed. Why would Atvod target almost 100 of them in one sweep, while leaving the mainstream content that glorifies impossible physical standards, sexual objectification, and the most banal commodification of the female body, remains to be discovered."
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