Study Claims Half Of Canadians Favor Online Pornography Restrictions

A flimsy study released by The Forum Poll, a Canadian public opinion poll, says that more than half of Canadians asked would like ISPs to restrict online adult content through filtering. The telephone poll surveyed 1,624 randomly-selected Canadians and 52 percent said they would prefer an opt-in program similar to the one imposed in the UK in July 2013.

Conducted on July 18, The Forum Poll shows that 34 percent of respondents opposed an opt-in program and 14 percent said they had no opinion. "Those who claim to use pornography resent any attempt by the state to interfere with their access [to it]," Forum Research president Dr. Lorne Bozinoff said. "To users, this is an area where personal liberty trumps the concerns of the state."

Nor surprising, the poll shows that the youngest respondents (46 percent) and males (48 percent) were opposed to the proposal. But in Alberta, one of Canada's most conservative provinces (think Texas in the U.S.) only 28 percent of poll takers were opposed to the opt-in plan.

The study went on to say 16 percent of respondents admitted to having viewed or purchased pornography in the past year, and 71 per cent of them are opposed to the filters. A further 26 percent of respondents preferred not to answer questions about their porn consumption, which amounts to an admission to porn use.

With a population of 34.8 million, one wonders if a survey of 1,624 Canadians can really tell us anything for sure. Perhaps Canadian legislatures ought to look to the motherland before ramming their opt-in plan down their citizens' throats. A July report from UK communications regulator Ofcom shows that since adopting mandatory opt-in porn filters a year ago, fewer than 10 percent of new subscribers at 75 percent of the country's major ISPs opted for the government-backed porn filters.