Iceland Calling for National Pornography Ban

And you thought Iceland was cold already: Apparently unsatisfied with its current reputation as one of the most austere environments in the world, elite government officials in Iceland are pressing for a national ban on pornography. 

Several top officials within Iceland's government - lead by interior minister Ogmundur Jonasson - are currently drawing up plans for a country-wide ban on pornography, both in print and on the Internet, according to The Guardian. 

"There is a strong consensus building in Iceland," said Halla Gunnarsdottir, an adviser to Jonasson, to the Daily Mail. "We have so many experts, from educationalists to the police and those who work with children behind this, that this has become much broader than party politics."

"At the moment, we are looking at the best technical ways to achieve this. But surely if we can send a man to the moon, we must be able to tackle porn on the Internet," Gunnarsdottir said.

Pornography has technically been banned in Iceland for years. However, because the term isn't expressly defined, the law isn't actually enforced. You can still purchase magazines like Playboy and Penthouse at book stores, and more lurid "hardcore" fare can be found sporadically in a few sex shops, CNN reported. 

Opponents of the proposals worry the laws are just a guise for a more insidious repressive agenda. Proponents argue the new laws being crafted won't include new restrictions; they'll just clear up what Gunnarsdottir calls a "vaguely worded law." The new law would only define pornography as material with "violent or degrading content," he said.

"This move is not anti-sex. It is anti-violence because young children are seeing porn and acting it out," Gunnarsdottir said. "That is where we draw the line. This material is blurring the boundaries for young people about what is right and wrong.

"When a 12-year-old types 'porn' into Google, he or she is not going to find photos of naked women out on a country field, but very hardcore and brutal violence," said Gunnarsdottir, according to The Guardian.

The committee is still reportedly exploring all its options for just how to enforce such a wide ban. One model suggests making it illegal for all Icelandic credit cards to purchase pornography. Another idea would use an Internet filter for the entire country or a list of particular websites to be blocked.

As many critics of the law have argued, executing such a wide ban on pornography carries a plague of problems, and may indeed be doomed to failure. But while attempting such a tremendous ban in a country like the U.S. would be next to impossible, as CNN noted, Iceland's small population (about 322,000)  and remote location (1,300 miles from Europe) makes the idea of a country-wide pornography ban more feasible, if not advisable. 

News of the government proposals has already sparked the outrage of numerous Internet freedom activists. 

"This kind of thing does not work. It is technically impossible to do in a way that has the intended effect," insisted Smari McCarthy of free-speech group the International Modern Media Institute. "And it has negative side effects - everything from slowing down the internet to blocking content that is not meant to be blocked to just generally opening up a whole can of worms regarding human rights issues, access to information and freedom of expression."