Chief MP David Cameron is famous for waging a war on freely-available internet porn, but in an amusing twist it seems that his fellow members are some pretty hefty consumers of online grot themselves. Cameron has made it clear that he wants UK ISPs to institute a UK porn block and most of the large providers have already complied.
According to The Express, in 2014 there were 247,000 requests for websites classified as pornographic from within the houses of parliament. On the plus side that's down slightly on the 2013 numbers when more than 300,000 requests were made. The paper uncovered the details using a Freedom of Information request.
Like ISPs, it seems that parliament is struggling with the reality of what people use the internet for. A commons spokesperson told The Express that "clear boundaries" are in place to "discourage inappropriate use".
David Cameron has been beating the porn block drum since 2013 when he claimed that watching porn was in danger of becoming a "rite of passage" for many young people. He claimed he would "do whatever it takes to keep our children safe".
But while ISPs have made attempts to block access to adult material online it's a hard job to get it right. While it's possible to block popular sites easily there are still millions of smaller operators which likely fly under the radar.
Services like newsgroups and torrent sites all have plentiful free access to an archive of porn too. And while some of these are already blocked by high court injunctions they will always persist as a way for people to access a variety of media, including porn, for free.
Additionally free services like TOR and paid-for VPNs both offer ways for people to hide their browsing from their ISP. If your internet provider can't see what sites you're visiting it becomes impossible to restrict access to anything you do. It seems like the people with most to gain by a UK porn block are those industrious VPN providers. Perhaps we should expect a CameronVPN at some point in the future, you know, to take advantage of a booming new market.