Regulating the internet

When asked if it could take on such a task, Ofcom's Jeremy Olivier said " were Ofcom be given such a task we would undoubtedly embrace it". But he also warned "the internet isn't a service or something that lends itself to taming".

Can Ofcom regulate?
Parliament could, should it choose, order Ofcom to regulate the internet ­ but could the organisation actually do so? Mr Olivier agreed that "access to illegal material poses less of a challenge" as "we don't want to manage access, we want to restrict everyone's access". But he added that "the position gets more complicated when talking about content that is legal but inappropriate for some ". He went on to explain that, although Ofcom is able to effectively regulate the material shown to children on television, doing so on the internet is far more difficult.

Anyone wishing to transmit television broadcasts in the UK needs a licence. This licence binds them to a set of rules that dictate what is, and is not, acceptable. In the UK this includes the rule that any programming suitable only for adults must be broadcast after the 9pm 'watershed'. EU legislation effectively guarantees that any television broadcasts anywhere in Europe are licensed in this manner.

The broadcast licensing system means that most of the regulation is actually performed by the broadcasters. A similar process applies to radio, and newspapers and magazines, where editorial staff who are expected to prevent the publication of obscene or defamatory content.

On the internet, however, there is no single editorial body creating or broadcasting the material: It comes from millions of companies and individual users and is hosted in millions of locations. "One of the real challenges when it comes to content regulation on the internet", Mr Olivier told the forum, "is deciding who makes these editorial judgments".

Mr Olivier also stressed the difficulty of regulating content produced largely outside the jurisdiction of the UK legal system. "Given the global nature of the internet," he said, "we're going to struggle. Rules won't cover most of the content."

"I don't think it's right to consider that we can make the same promises for the internet that we can for broadcast," he said. "The priority must be to ensure that audiences understand the limits of regulation and to make sure that parents are aware of their own responsibilities."

Who wants regulation?
Adults who use the internet regularly might wonder why the idea of regulation is even being suggested. After all, most of us learn to use the internet in a way that avoids offensive sites.

One key concern, though, is that of legal but offensive material being available to children. Peter Johnson of the British Board of Film Classification, which rates and censors films and some video games in the UK, warned of the popularity of pornography websites that allow users to upload videos. These websites are so popular that several rank in the list of the UK's most visited websites, but many make no effort to prevent children from viewing their content.

Another concern is that of the internet being used to access copyrighted material that is being illegally reproduced. Richard Mollett, representing the British Phonographic Industry trade association, said that the Wild West is a " good metaphor" for the internet. He asked whether it had the potential to become "a digital Somalia". By this he meant a 'failed state' where the rule of law was no longer enforced because many people use it to obtain music or films they have not paid for.

Filtering
So if the internet should be regulated, then how? Some believe that automated filters should be used to limit access to offensive or harmful content just as the IWF's blacklist is used to block illegal sites. The pressure group Media March, whose online manifesto calls for the Government to "strengthen Britain's obscenity laws", demanded that computers should be sold with a "default setting "to filter adult content. It cited the Chinese government's censored internet access as an example of effective filtering.