Parliament should back public wishes to amend the Online Safety Bill, to tighten restrictions on pornography, according to Christian campaigners.
Findings by People Polling in collaboration with GB News, indicate that eight in ten adults believe users should be forced to verify their age before accessing online pornography.
It is an issue that Christian activists continue to get behind; faith-related lobbying groups have been pressing the government for years to curb the numbers of children and young people accessing explicit content via what’s been dubbed the “Wild West” of the internet.
However, the frustration spans far beyond just people of faith. Only five per cent of people polled – religious and otherwise – disagreed with more stringent age restrictions.
Easy access to extreme porn doesn’t just unite concerned believers and atheists but also voters from each end of the UK political spectrum; 80 per cent of Labour voters and 84 per cent of Conservative voters asked agreed with calls for age verification.
A recent study into the effects of pornography on young people suggested that viewing explicit content could be linked to negative attitudes towards women and higher rates of self-reported sexual violence.
Plans to introduce age verification are already included in the bill, which has just completed its third reading in the House of Lords. But there are concerns the measures do not go far enough. Christian group CARE has been campaigning on the issue for years.
A spokeswoman for the charity said: ”This survey chimes with our own representative polling over many years, which also found broad public support for age verification measures on porn sites.
“Age checks, using existing and tested technology, can prevent especially younger children from accessing explicit content. However, these measures must come alongside a broader range of actions.
“When it comes to pornographic content, what is illegal offline should be illegal online. Extreme porn and prohibited pornographic material that cannot be sold in shops should not be available to watch online.
“Upwards of 65 per cent of pornography available on mainstream websites would not be allowed to be sold in shops. This legal loophole must be closed.”