In a bid to curb Australia’s domestic violence crisis, the federal government is turning its attention to online pornography.
This month, the government announced it would spend $6.5 million to pilot age-verification technology. It follows a 2023 report that found 75 per cent of 16-18-year-olds surveyed had seen porn. Of those, nearly one-third saw it before the age of 13.
The measure aims to prevent children from accessing adult material and “tackle extreme online misogyny, which is fuelling harmful attitudes towards women”, the government said.
This week, federal minister Tanya Plibersek told ABC’s AM program that the figures for sexual assault are “exploding“.
“Kids are seeing pornography that includes choking and anal sex before they’ve had their first kiss,” she said.
“Unless we begin to tackle it now, we are going to see a continued epidemic of sexual assault amongst teenagers.”
The UK government is currently trying to enact its own age assurance measures, although pornography regulation has proven problematic in the past.
Meanwhile, three of the world’s biggest porn sites are facing new requirements, including age verification, in the European Union.
It’s unclear how the Australia’s pilot will work, but if the eSafety commissioner’s 2023 Roadmap for age verification is anything to go by, it could involve anonymised digital tokens to prove a user’s age.