The South African Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, has introduced the “Internet and Cell Phone Pornography Bill” to the National Assembly, in which he proposes that all pornography accessible through the Internet and mobile phones – not only the already illegal forms such as child pornography – be made illegal. The bill does not provide any clarity on how he expects to be able to track and block (if necessary) the 136 000 new internet domains registered in the last twenty-four hours, nor all the ones that could get registered before he figures out how to shut down the internet.
Besides the mysterious desire to introduce bills that can’t possibly be enforced, what is notable about this bill is Section 4, titled “Consultation”. In this section, it is revealed that four organisations were consulted, of which three are explicitly Christian, and one apparently so. What’s more, the three Christian groups are already on record as being in opposition to all forms of pornography – which, as indicated earlier, means that the nature of their input towards this bill would have contained no surprises.