"Common sense", moral panic style
"Safermedia, [...] takes the line that an opt-in system, verifying that a user is over 18, is a simple common sense protection for children."
Because at heart, we're all children, including everyone who is over 18. Always. This is turning "innocent until proven guilty" on its head.
"This means that children and those not wishing to have pornography beamed unasked for into their homes and on their mobile phones are not being bombarded, while those adults who do, can opt in."
It seems so reasonable. But do explain, how come I'm not getting bombarded now without ever having to have opted out?
"At the moment, awareness of filtering technology is low and filters can be worked around, especially by IT-savvy children. Education is of limited value given children generally do not understand the dangers and parents can be too busy, or uninterested and sometimes not even literate."
So because *some* parents *can be* irresponsible ("too busy" is never an excuse, "illiterate" means you haven't done your homework), everybody must always be treated as such, including those who do not have children?
As a parent _it is your job_ to be responsible for your children and if that means staying ahead of your children's learning curve, then that just adds to the burden of being a parent. Don't you go offloading that on everybody else, you bad parent, you.
"Neither can they police every device or their children's friends homes."
Nobody needs to police every device possible. All you need is to strictly control what devices the children come into contact with, just as you would need to strictly control what other kids you let your children play with, in what homes, and so on. It does mean you have to have a clue. Which is clearly sadly lacking in this bunch.
"Therefore it is not feasible or reasonable to rely on parental responsibility alone to protect children from the material the industry is producing."
Demagogue's rhetoric. Nobody said you had to rely on parental responsibility alone. The industry is falling over itself to accomodate you with tools to strengthen that parental responsibility on as-needed basis. Censorship by default, as you want, simply isn't reasonable.