Chai Brady
Farmers are heavily in favour of age-restrictions on pornography, with only 3% believing there should be free access.
An Irish Examiner/ICMSA poll of farmers and farming families found that 72% believe strongly there should be age restrictions, with 14% slightly agreeing.
Support for the restriction was similar across all age groups, peaking among people aged 45-54 at 90%.
Speaking to The Irish Examiner, Kate Dawson, researcher in the School of Psychology at NUI Galway and the Unesco Child and Family Research Centre explained some issues implementing age restrictions.
Regulation
Even if some of the major sites were regulated, she said: “To circumvent age restrictions, under-18s could dig a little deeper to find unregulated sites, and inadvertently be brought websites that host more extreme or even entirely illegal material.”
The poll also found that 72% of farming families believe that tech giants have a negative effect on Irish society, with 43% of them strongly agreeing.
Just 11% of respondents disagreed that social media giants have a negative impact. According to the poll, 79% of those aged over 65 were the most likely to distrust companies such as Google and Facebook and believe they have a negative impact on society.
Even people aged under 35 were sceptical, with 68% believing they are not a positive force.