A Labour MP who wants Britain to have a ‘summer of sex’ has endorsed a porn site that appears to be breaching current pornography laws, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Samantha Niblett – who wants to have a sex toys exhibition inside Parliament – has publicly backed an adult site called MakeLoveNotPorn (MLNP), which claims to follow laws which prevent children from viewing adult content.
But an investigation by the MoS has found that MLNP may be breaching these laws. Under the law, porn content must either be blocked or blurred until the age verification process is complete.
But MLNP, which claims to be a sex education platform, allows viewers to watch its videos for 12 seconds before they have to buy a subscription to watch in full. Explicit and graphic content can be seen within the free view period.
The videos seen by the MoS show oral sex, a woman performing a sex act on a man, and sexual intercourse. None of the videos was blurred out. Yair Cohen, a legal expert on pornography laws, said: ‘It looks like the website does breach the law if it shows adult content within that 12 seconds before any age verification.’
Ofcom’s website says that the age check for porn sites ‘should be at the point of entry’ and that ‘no harmful content’ should be visible to users before then.
Cindy Gallop, 66, founder of MLNP, told the MoS that the website complies with UK age verification laws through its paywall system.
Ms Gallop said: ‘We can vouch for everything on our website, because every piece of content has been through a stringent human review process to ensure it conforms to our standards of safety.’
She added that in order to watch the 12-second free view clips, a user has to create a free account using an email through which MLNP performs ‘age estimation’.
But two MoS reporters opened two separate fake email accounts, registering their date of births as if they were under 16 years old, and still managed to create accounts with MLNP and view the free 12-second clips.
Ofcom said: ‘Porn sites should introduce highly effective age assurance at the point of entry to the site or ensure that no harmful content is visible before checks are completed. Companies that fail to comply can expect to face enforcement.’ Ms Niblett was contacted for comment.
Ms Niblett said: ‘It is this Labour government that is implementing the Online Safety Act in order to prevent children from seeing content that is not age appropriate. I was assured MLNP was Ofcom-compliant having only ever signed in myself using my own age to access the site.
‘I welcome any extra steps MLNP can take to ensure no child accesses content that is not age-appropriate.’
She added: ‘The campaign for Life-Long Sex Education has never been needed more to help remove the shame and embarrassment from sex to help people have happier and healthier lives, and importantly to prevent monsters using sex as a weapon.’
Additional reporting: Isaac Crowson
TV blind date she’d love to forget
Samantha Niblett was once a guest star in Davina McCall’s dating show Streetmate, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Ms Niblett went on a ‘random date’ fixed by Ms McCall in an episode of the 90s series.
The future MP, who worked in a bank, was 18 at the time and going by Samantha Doherty. She was approached by Ms McCall in Nottingham town centre, and was set up with Jeff Chambers, then 22, a local gym owner.
But the date was not a success. During their dinner, Mr Chambers – who greeted everyone with the words ‘how you didly’ – drank too much wine.
By the end of the night, he was staggering along the road. After the date, Ms Niblett said: ‘He had been drinking before the meal, and when we had a meal, he kept on drinking. It would be interesting to see him sober.’
When the pair were interviewed a month later, Ms Niblett revealed she did not meet with Mr Chambers after the date.
