Author: Nick
Myles Jackman: Don’t criminalise the selfie-generation
Cross-posted from Myles Jackman By criminalising young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, our political and justice systems show how disconnected they are from technological change and social values, which is especially worrying so close to an election where politicians have been exploiting selfie culture. After an NSPCC […]
Guardian: Sexting could see teenagers branded as sex offenders
Damien Gayle covers Backlash’s warning that ‘criminalising 16- to 18-year-olds for sending explicit pictures to one another shows how disconnected the political establishment is from changes to technology and social values’. Read his article here
Major political parties fail to halt mass criminalisation of young people
Civil liberties campaign opposes labelling teen ‘sexters’ as sex offenders A politically charged moral panic over young people’s attitudes to sexuality is leading to Internet censorship and the labelling of ordinary young people as sex offenders, civil liberties campaign Backlash warns today. Backlash will campaign for a change in the […]
Myles Jackman – new website launch
Myles Jackman, solicitor advocate and legal adviser to Backlash, has launched a new website dedicated to advice on sexual freedom and the law. Jackman has frequently provided pro bono work for individuals caught up in laws regulating sex acts, and their depictions, between consenting adults. He also has expertise advising […]
Lord Chief Justice Thomas mistaken: Internet porn does not turn people into murderers
Lord Thomas has claimed that Internet pornography was ‘a contributing factor in one of the most gruesome murder cases he had to rule on last year’ (see also the Daily Telegraph). As someone who has to sit in judgement over some of the worst offences committed in the United Kingdom, […]
Opposition to censorship from left to right and everywhere else
“Currently, the BBFC bans video featuring female ejaculation. It seems ludicrous that in 2014, we could be criminalising people who record and distribute video of a healthy anatomical event” – D H Kelly, The F Word “Why anyone in their right mind would hand any more power to the state […]
New powers to censor digital media are a threat to free expression
Backlash launches challenge against attempt to shut down British websites with adult content Today, the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014(1), a new law governing online media, comes into force in the UK. Backlash(2) will challenge the legality of this new regulation as a new threat to free expression. The law […]
On Cultural Harm and Pornographic Diversity
Jude Roberts has a significant post on the problematic concept of ‘cultural harm’, which is frequently used as a justification for censoring pornography, especially in the absence of evidence that pornography is associated with more concrete harms against people. Part of her argument links ‘cultural harm’ to the disproportionate focus of […]
New Statesman: The allure of the closet: is kink only sexy when it is underground?
Margaret Corvid discusses the kink closet, and Backlash’s work protecting the employment rights and family lives of people with a kinky private sex life: “People who are outed risk losing their professional and social status; access to their children; and, in extreme cases, going to prison for having engaged in […]
Independent: Web dominatrix wins David and Goliath battle with regulators
A dominatrix whose website provides paid-for bondage and sadomasochistic content has won her David-and-Goliath battle against a quango’s attempts to regulate her site in the same way as ITV Player. Lawyers representing Ms Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, who runs the website The Urban Chick Supremacy Cell (UCSC), declared the ruling “a […]