Baroness Bertin's porn review: 'This isn't me driving a tank onto the lawn of censorship'

Over the last 20 years, the internet has become ever more accessible and essential to our everyday lives – and online pornography has become more extreme. Successive governments have ignored the problem, however.

“Politicians hate to be seen to be policing people's sex lives,” observes Gabby Bertin, a former press secretary to David Cameron who now sits in the Lords as a Conservative peer. 

Baroness Bertin has just published a review, Creating a Safer World – the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography, which makes 32 recommendations; among them are the move to make non-fatal strangulation pornography and that which depicts incest illegal, and a ban on “degrading, violent and misogynistic content”, including any that could encourage an interest in child sex abuse.

The 200-page report highlights that the average age people first see porn nowadays is 13 and that ‘choking’ sex is being normalised, with a Savanta survey showing 38 per cent of women aged 18 to 39 have experienced it. Non-fatal strangulation (NFS) is a crime under the Domestic Abuse Act but not explicitly illegal in porn.

Bertin is determined to see the online world of pornography treated in the same way as the offline one, where there is a safety net because videos are subject to classification.

“I've been incredibly clear throughout: this is not about going any further than what we have in the offline world in terms of restrictions and safeguards,” she explains. “There should be no squeamishness about that. This isn't me driving a tank onto the lawn of censorship. Not a bit of it. It’s simply saying: we need parity because it's so much easier to access.”

Addressing the counter-arguments she expects to receive, she says: “It is not your right to see abusive, harmful, degrading, misogynistic porn, much like it's not your right to go and punch someone in the face in the street.”

Bertin is keen to “push back so hard” against the freedom of speech argument when it comes to porn, she adds. “It is not about freedom of speech. That was never an issue when we were debating the Video Recordings Act.” 

The 1984 legislation made it mandatory for commercial videos for sale or hire to carry a classification, which is decided by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). Bertin’s review suggests a body such as the BBFC should be appointed to perform a similar role for online content, conducting audits of online platforms.

The last time a prime minister talked boldly about regulating pornography was perhaps her old boss, Cameron, who warned in 2013 of the increasing “cultural” problem of children watching hardcore porn. He faced significant criticism after announcing the introduction of mandatory internet filters for pornography on all home internet connections. 

“I was press secretary at the time, so I wasn't involved in the policy side of it,” Bertin recalls. “If I’d had my head slightly more screwed on, we perhaps would have been more aggressive on it. But it's timing. Unfortunately, situations sometimes need to get bad before any real action is taken. I'm afraid pornography is a really classic example of that.”

As shown by the Online Safety Act (“not a perfect piece of legislation, but quite a strong weapon now in the armoury”), the internet is no longer being given the “special status” – as described by Cameron – that it once enjoyed. Its ubiquity is under no threat, so criticism is more accepted.

Bertin gives her view: “Why has the debate changed? Do you know what? I think that some of the powerful voices in that debate have now had children, and they are now seeing what's going on.”

“A few people who were actively unhelpful when we were in office” now regret it, she reports, with one – “who shall remain nameless” – telling her “it keeps him awake at night, that he, in a sense, made putting that through more difficult”.

Asked about what shocked her most while putting together the report, Bertin points to her visit to the BBFC in the first month of taking on the role. The film classification organisation gave a briefing on what they would not allow in porn, and contrasted it with what they had found on mainstream sites.

“The content that will always stay with me was a child's bedroom set up; a little girl – she would have been over 18, but she looked no older than 12 – and he was saying, ‘Daddy's home’. I don't need to go into any more detail. 

“Not acceptable. Outrageous. And the BBFC make it very clear: any content that could encourage any interest in child sexual abuse would not be allowed [offline]. In addition to the violent, abusive porn, we have to get that off mainstream sites.”

She also remembers an example from before her work on the porn review, during her scrutiny of the Domestic Abuse Act. A teenage pupil who had raped one of his classmates was “sobbing” in the headmistress’ office while waiting for the police to arrive. 

“He literally didn't understand what he'd done wrong,” according to the headteacher, Bertin says. She stresses that “young men and boys are victims as well” and, speaking as a mother, says of unregulated porn: “I felt very strongly that this is damaging our sons as much as it's damaging our daughters”.

Discussing the way women’s and girls’ experiences are shaped by porn via the damage it has done to their sexual partners, Bertin, 46, says: “I'm quite fortunate in that, with my age, I have not, you know…” She allows the sentence to trail off. “This is something that is affecting the younger generation, for sure. The choking sex is probably the best example.”

When I report that, at university, young women realised it might be preferable to choose older men whose brains and desires had not been affected by porn, the peer replies: “That is a really shocking insight, actually. Personally, I'm too old to have experienced that, and that's what breaks my heart, really. People in my generation didn't have to deal with that in our adolescence.”

“I do accept that, to some people, any kind of pornography could well look [abusive]. But we can't boil the ocean”

It is not only teenagers and those just entering adulthood who are affected now, of course. Bertin’s review explores the link between viewing porn and harmful sexual behaviour, and cites the Angiolini Inquiry as noting that 33-year-old Sarah Everard’s murderer had a history of viewing violent pornography.

“I’m actually almost getting goosebumps just talking about it,” says Bertin. “There is no doubt in my mind of the connection: if you are seeing this harmful stuff, especially from a young age, that is going to affect what you want and what drives you in the offline world.”
 
The peer, who describes herself as a “liberal Conservative” and not a “prude” in the report, would not ban all porn. She engaged with the industry for the porn review because “you need them to meet you halfway”.

“I know there are many people who think porn should be outlawed and it's all essentially exploitation. I don't go as far as that. I accept that porn exists. I accept that it's a legal industry,” she says. 

“I think trying to ban it outright is just not the answer. There should be a greater encouragement to highlight ethical pornography where you know that it's totally consensual; where it's something that a woman might enjoy. It can be done differently.”

Instead, the review recommends banning degrading, violent and misogynistic content. But some would say that applies to all porn; others would say none; and many would set limits at all different points along the spectrum. Who decides what content meets those criteria? How would she define it?

“A starting point has to be how the BBFC would define it. The BBFC, Ofcom and the government have to really start having a grown-up conversation about what this actually looks like,” she replies.

“There will have to be a sense that any reasonable person looking at this content wouldn't come away thinking it was abusive… I do accept that, to some people, any kind of pornography could well look like that. But we can't boil the ocean. We've just got to try and come up with something that knocks 70 per cent of this stuff out.”

The review also looks at intimate image abuse and recommends making the non-consensual ‘taking’ and ‘making’ of intimate images – whether real or deepfake – an offence. Bertin praises her fellow Tory peer Baroness (Charlotte) Owen, who has brought forward a Private Members’ Bill to bring this in.

“Massive, massive kudos to Charlotte. She has been incredible. The best decision Boris ever made!” she says, countering the criticisms made of Johnson’s decision to give a life peerage to the young former aide. “She's had a lot of grief coming in, and she has done some amazing stuff.”

While artificial intelligence is being wielded to cause harm right now, could she see it used positively – as a helpful tool to identify harmful material online?

“It's a bit like when Volvo invented the seat belt. There is so much money in these tech firms. They're so clever,” she says. “If we want to, and if those companies want to, we will be able to program AI models to say, ‘This is the kind of pornography and these are the kind of images we don't want, and they should be got rid of’.”

Elon Musk’s changes to Twitter, now X, have allowed porn to proliferate on the platform. With the tech entrepreneur now a part of the US government, what can be done to tackle that?

“X is a good example. Everyone needs to understand that it's not actually pornography sites, quite often, where the problem is – it's social media. There's tons of it,” Bertin says. 

“Age verification will kick in for X like it will kick in for any other company. They will have to have a grown-up conversation with their UK offices about how they are going to operate within the law. We have to stand by our values and make sure that we're not treating some companies differently.”

“I think if the government doesn't act, they will look back and think, ‘Why didn’t we do that?’”

She adds that Trump has expressed anti-porn sentiment in the past, being the only presidential candidate in 2016 to sign a pledge vowing to enforce existing laws against adult materials.

“Funnily enough, with a president like Donald Trump, who is obviously relatively unpredictable, you might find that we could be in a better place on this stuff,” the peer says. “If you had 10 minutes with him and explained, ‘this is what is actually happening, and this is what we're trying to do’, you may find you have an ally.” 

She could pull a “Charmer Starmer” on Trump? “He’s my next target,” she laughs.

One contributor to the porn review told Woman’s Hour she thought it was being buried, having been released during a busy news week with a 10am embargo that hampered evening coverage. And the author is a Conservative, who was appointed to lead the review by Rishi Sunak’s administration. But Bertin insists she is optimistic about the impact her work could have.

“We are at a crucial moment. We’ve got the Online Safety Act. We've got so much noise in this area. I think if the government doesn't act, they will look back and think, ‘Why didn’t we do that?’” she warns.

The Labour government has set itself a target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. “If you don't do the prevention, which this obviously is, that's ridiculous,” Bertin cautions ministers.

“I am quietly confident that they will want to do something on this, because if they don't, they're going to have such a big problem. I'm really, really up for working with them. 

“I've got a good relationship with the government. I'm meeting Peter Kyle next week. He seems like a really reasonable, highly intelligent individual who I think will understand this. I hope he will also see that, because I've been in government and I was in No 10, I have really worked hard to try and create something that they can go with.”

Bertin highlights that she had a secretariat based in the Department of Science and Technology – “an energetic, clever group of civil servants”.

“I've not been working doing this out of a think tank,” she points out. “If government had said to me or I’d known there's no way they can do this, I probably wouldn't have bothered putting it in.”

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