Telecommunications in Austria encompass highly developed and efficient internet and telephone networks, complemented by a number of radio and television broadcast stations.
Pornography has existed since the origins of the United States, and has become more readily accessible in the 21st century. Advanced by technological development, it has gone from a hard-to-find "back alley" item, beginning in 1969 with Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, the Golden Age of Porn (1969–1984) and home video, to being more available in the country and later, starting in the 1990s, readily accessible to nearly anyone with a computer or other device connected to the Internet. The U.S. has no current plans to block explicit content from children and adolescents, as many other countries have planned or proceeded to do.
Pornography laws by region vary throughout the world. The production and distribution of pornographic films are both activities that are legal in some but not all countries, as long as the pornography features performers above a certain age, usually 18 years. Further restrictions are often placed on such material.
Pornography has been dominated by a few pan-European producers and distributors, the most notable of which is the Private Media Group that successfully claimed the position previously held by Color Climax Corporation in the early 1990s. Most European countries also have local pornography producers, from Portugal to Serbia, who face varying levels of competition with international producers. The legal status of pornography varies widely in Europe; its production and distribution are illegal in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria, while Hungary has liberal pornography laws.
Pornography has been defined as sexual subject material such as a picture, video, text, or audio that is intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornography depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adult content is made classifying it as pornography or erotica.
Child erotica is non-pornographic material relating to children that is used by any individuals for sexual purposes. It is a broader term than child pornography, incorporating material that may cause sexual arousal such as nonsexual images, books or magazines on children or pedophilia, toys, diaries, or clothes. Law enforcement investigators have found that child erotica is often collected by pedophiles and child sexual abuse offenders. It may be collected as a form of compulsive behavior and as a substitute for illegal underage pornography and is often a form of evidence for criminal behavior.
Internet censorship in the United Kingdom is conducted under a variety of laws, judicial processes, administrative regulations and voluntary arrangements. It is achieved by blocking access to sites as well as the use of laws that criminalise publication or possession of certain types of material. These include English defamation law, the Copyright law of the United Kingdom, regulations against incitement to terrorism and child pornography.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a global registered charity based in Cambridge, England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhere in the world and non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK." Content inciting racial hatred was removed from the IWF's remit after a police website was set up for the purpose in April 2011. The IWF used to also take reports of criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK. This was removed from the IWF's remit in 2017. As part of its function, the IWF says that it will "supply partners with an accurate and current URL list to enable blocking of child sexual abuse content". It has "an excellent and responsive national Hotline reporting service" for receiving reports from the public. In addition to receiving referrals from the public, its agents also proactively search the open web and deep web to identify child sexual abuse images and videos. It can then ask service providers to take down the websites containing the images or to block them if they fall outside UK jurisdiction.
Legal frameworks around fictional pornography depicting minors vary depending on country and nature of the material involved. Laws against production, distribution, and consumption of child pornography generally separate images into three categories: real, pseudo, and virtual. Pseudo-photographic child pornography is produced by digitally manipulating non-sexual images of real minors to make pornographic material. Virtual child pornography depicts purely fictional characters. "Fictional pornography depicting minors," as covered in this article, includes these latter two categories, whose legalities vary by jurisdiction, and often differ with each other and with the legality of real child pornography.
Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the Internet; primarily via websites, FTP connections, peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The greater accessibility of the World Wide Web from the late 1990s led to an incremental growth of Internet pornography, the use of which among adolescents and adults has since become increasingly popular.
Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the designated age of majority. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.
In the Netherlands, child pornography is illegal, making it one of the 103 out of 193 UN member states where it is illegal.
Internet censorship in South Africa is a developing topic.
The Authority for Television on Demand (ATVOD) was an industry body designated by Ofcom as the "co-regulator" of television on demand (VOD) in the UK from 2010 until 2015. ATVOD was founded following a European Union directive on the regulation of audiovisual media. It was responsible for regulating on-demand services such as ITV Player and Channel 4's All 4, as well as paid-for content on websites which were deemed to be "tv-like". ATVOD's role with regard to VOD ended on 31 December 2015, when the function was taken over by Ofcom directly.
Pornography in Asia is pornography created in Asia, watched in Asia, or consumed or displayed in other parts of the world as one or more genres of Asian porn.
xHamster is a pornographic media and social networking site headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. xHamster serves user-submitted pornographic videos, webcam models, pornographic photographs, and erotic literature and incorporates social networking features. xHamster was founded in 2007. With more than 10 million members, it is the third-most popular adult website on the Internet after Pornhub and XVideos. As of August 2024, xHamster is the 33rd-most-visited website in the world.
Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography video-sharing website, one of several owned by adult entertainment conglomerate Aylo. As of August 2024, Pornhub is the 16th-most-visited website in the world and the most-visited adult website.
In China, including the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan), the pornography laws and definitions vary depending on the governing authority. In the PRC there are criminal laws which prohibit the production, dissemination, and selling of sexually explicit material, and anyone doing so may be sentenced to life imprisonment. There is an ongoing campaign against "spiritual pollution", the term referencing the Chinese Communist party's Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign of 1983. Although pornography is illegal, it is available via the Internet. Nationwide surveys between the years 2000 and 2015 revealed "more than 70 percent of men aged 18 to 29 said they had watched porn in the past year".
The Digital Economy Act 2017 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is substantially different from, and shorter than, the Digital Economy Act 2010, whose provisions largely ended up not being passed into law. The act addresses policy issues related to electronic communications infrastructure and services, and updates the conditions for and sentencing of criminal copyright infringement. It was introduced to Parliament by culture secretary John Whittingdale on 5 July 2016. Whittingdale was replaced as culture secretary by Karen Bradley on 14 July 2016. The act received Royal Assent on 27 April 2017.
Pornography in Cyprus is legal with restrictions. Selling pornographic material to people under 18 years old is illegal. Child pornography is a crime and is strictly prohibited.
