Iceland contemplates a ban on Internet pornography
The iPads and one Samsung Galaxy (2L) with pornography applications are on display at the Pink Visual booth at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo Jan. 9, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Porn fans are being enticed with cyber sex and virtual affairs as the adult entertainment industry adapts to survive in the Internet Age.
Iceland may no longer be an amiable place for committed fans of online smut: the government of the European island-nation is now contemplating a wholesale ban on Internet pornography, to be accomplished with the use of China-style filters.
Why ban what is, admittedly, one of the planet's more profitable online endeavors? The Icelandic government says that it's due to concerns over its effect on young people and on the welfare of women, wrote the Telegraph.
Read more from GlobalPost: UK won't automatically block Internet porn
"We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime," said Ogmundur Jonasson, the Icelandic interior minister who is drafting the legislation, to the Telegraph.
Iceland is still figuring out ways to accomplish this presumably Herculean feat, including blocking Icelandic credit cards from being used on pornography websites, and blocking the IP addresses of sites with the offending content, writes the Daily Mail.
If the decision goes through, Iceland will become the first Western nation to impose a whole sale ban on pornography — although the UK has flirted with the idea.
This isn't Iceland's first stab at woman-friendly bans: in 2010, the Icelandic parliament banned all strip clubs, citing them as harmful to women.
The decision may have been influenced by Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, an out lesbian who has also pioneered legislation banning companies from making money off of nude employees in any context, according to the Guardian.