Bruce Hyer says he wants more time to think about a Conservative MP’s proposal to force Canadians to have to opt in to view pornography online.
The independent MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North said the idea, brought forth by Winnipeg MP Joy Smith in reaction to similar legislation introduced on Monday by British Prime Minister David Cameron, has its good and bad sides.
“It’s an interesting idea. While adults should have the right to access responsible erotica, there is a lot of sick stuff out there that would confuse or could even damage children,” Hyer said via email.
The Internet is a powerful medium for good and evil. I will be pondering this idea, and would not dismiss it out of hand.”
In a statement released on Tuesday, Smith said Cameron’s plan had two goals: to protect children from exposure to adult pornography and tackle head-on the multitude of child sex abuse photos available online.
Cameron’s plan involves forcing Internet Service Providers to automatically filter out pornography. If a customer wishes to view it, they’d be forced to opt in.
Smith’s call for similar legislation in
“The purpose of the ISP based filter on adult pornography is not to block or censor pornography from adults, but to block it from children. Accusations of censorship are as ludicrous as suggesting that prohibiting the sale of adult videos to children is censorship,” Smith writes in a statement posted on the Kildonan-St. Paul representative’s website.
“Anyone over 18 in the U.K .would still have full control or their access to legal pornography. British ISPs have developed a filter to block legal adult pornography and this will be applied to all customers unless they choose to turn it off. And turning it off will be as simple as logging into your ISP account and un-checking a box.”
Smith’s call has met with plenty of opposition, many saying parents already have home-based filters available to them, which Smith said only work on the computers on which they’re installed.
“In an age of wireless home networks, when many children have smart phones, and friends with smart phones, having an anti-pornography filter installed on your home computer is useless.”
But while Smith says she believes in protecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians and values an open Internet, Hyer says he’s skeptical when it comes to Conservative legislation.
“The devil would likely be in the details, and the Conservatives have over-reacted and introduced much flawed legislation on many crime and media issues,” Hyer said.
