Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/02/18/iceland_pr0n_block_touted/
Iceland thinks long and hard over extreme smut web ban law
IP-address blocking and filters proposed to cull violent vids
Posted in Legal, 18th February 2013 15:19 GMT
Iceland is mulling a new law banning access to violent internet porn following research into the effect of extreme grumble-flicks on kids.
The proposed rules, which were put forward by interior minister Ögmundur Jónasson, are being scrutinised by the country's parliament.
It is access to violent pornography - rather than common-or-garden X-rated vids - that could be blocked by the new law. The Minister's political advisor Halla Gunnarsdóttir promised a narrow definition of violent filth that would clearly separate it from more palatable sexually explicit material.
"It's not anti-sex, it's anti-violence," she told the Daily Mail, which is waging its own war on blue-movie-ogling Brits.
Justifying the ban, ministers cited a 2010 study by the Icelandic government which concluded that kids exposed to footage of extreme hardcore action and youngsters actually physically abused shared the same signs of trauma.
Strategies for implementing a porno block include forbidding connections to selected IP addresses, filtering web traffic by ISPs, and making it a crime to use an Icelandic credit card to buy porn from outlawed sites.
Iceland intends to conduct further research on the impact of pornography on society but admitted it was tough to assess the effects because it is difficult to find a control group: it was almost impossible to find large numbers of young men who had never watched porn. ®