Blocking Pornographic Websites Counterintuitive and Futile

The government blocked 560 pornographic websites, and the question this piece asks is not whether the intention was good but whether the instrument works.

Two aims were stated. On protecting children, exposure to adult material now arrives through social media, film and television as much as through dedicated sites, so a blocklist addresses a fraction of the actual exposure and leaves the rest untouched. Children will encounter such content, younger than before, whatever the list says. On discouraging visits, circumvention is trivial and costs the determined user almost nothing.

Nothing here argues that the state should do nothing. The argument is narrower and harder: a measure can be morally and ethically justified and still be the wrong tool, and on this problem there is no substitute for teaching children about the online world, its uses and the threats that come with it.

Legality and good intentions do not establish that a rule is fit for its purpose. That distinction runs through most of what I have written since.