This is going to be an unusual post in that I’m trying to sell nothing and it is going to be a little serious.
At PlayBlue we stay out of politics as we would suggest politics has no place in your sex life. Enda Kenny last night on the news started talking about porn specifically children having free and easy access to porn. At PlayBlue we have an obvious vested interest here, but outside of that I am also a parent with strong views.
I would say Enda has been way too slow to look at the problem of porn in Irish society, we just seem to bury our heads in the sand and try to pretend porn isn’t available everywhere. With a couple of clicks I can be looking at hard core porn but so can our children and this is just plain wrong. I find myself in the singularly momentous position of actually nearly agreeing with Enda Kenny (thought I’d never say those words) that we need to do something about this problem.
Before I suggest a solution let me first outline the conflicted position I have. At PlayBlue we sell porn instore and via our sister website PlayBlueMovies.com. If porn wasn’t free online I imagine our business in this area would boom. Porn is a relatively small part of our business making up low single digit percentages of our sales. But I also have the vested interest of having three kids who I’d do anything to protect.
The solution is for all ISP (internet service providers) in the country to automatically block access to porn unless the bill payer explicitly opts-in. So by default all porn is blocked then if a person chooses to want access to porn they need to call their ISP support desk and ask for it to be unblocked for their connection. This would include all broadband providers and mobile phone companies.
I know there are still a few loopholes like access via VPNs or access via remote out of state servers but the solution outlined would stop free access for the overwhelming majority of kids. Also people might be too embarrassed to call to get access to porn but this is also a small price and personally I see no issue with adults who want to view porn so again I believe the vast majority will have no issue with this.
We can lead the way here like we did with the smoking ban and set a simple to use set of rules in place to virtually eliminate this problem, if we do it right this will spread quickly across the globe too.
Come on Enda just get it done!