Iceland has decided to think of the children, or something, and ban all porn from its Internet. Mostly, however, their explanation leaves us wondering what the hell is going on in the Icelandic educational system.
Seriously, read this and ask yourself what’s wrong with this picture:
‘This move is not anti-sex. It is anti-violence because young children are seeing porn and acting it out. That is where we draw the line.’
First of all, no offense, guys, but where the hell are the parents in all of this? It’s not like Web-filtering programs and child locks are magical unicorns that are impossible to find; a quick Google search turns up dozens of free tools to do precisely this.
Also, we’re well beyond Googling a naughty word for a laugh and getting page after page of pants pythons at that point. Seriously, if this is actually happening and isn’t just insane hyperbole, then Iceland’s problems extend well beyond Internet porn.
Beyond that, Iceland’s perspective is that porn violates the rights of women; that if little kids see pornography, it’s the same emotionally as being abused and that it’s difficult for parents to control every computer a kid accesses; and that porn has a direct link to violence. The former point definitely needs to be a part of any conversation about the pornography industry, involving censorship or otherwise. The middle point, honestly, even if you think the psychology is doubtful, it’s safe to agree that little kids should not be watching porn and it is hard to keep tabs on every computer a kid uses, although frankly any adult buying a kid a smartphone needs a hard smack.
It’s that last point, though, that’s a bit… questionable, to say the least. There’s this whole “boner equals werewolf” idea that underpins the entire concept and is a wee bit deflecting. It’s especially bizarre because, even when you factor in underreporting of sexual assault, Iceland has a rate, as a country, that’s better than most American cities and a fair chunk of the European Union.
We’ve also got to call them out on the overall tone, which is essentially “Pornography is hunting down our children like it’s the Predator.” No, the kids are coming TO the porno, guys. Making it harder to access will help with that, but unless your kids really are sociopathic, you kind of need to approach it from that angle, too.
Iceland can do what it wants: There are more repressive countries out there, and this is largely a token gesture anyway. Unless Iceland’s figured out a way to ban proxy servers and torrents, making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards on porn sites (which effectively means banning certain online merchants from doing business in Iceland) and blocking porn site IPs is going to mean less than nothing.
Still, it seems, a lot, like Iceland has decided its cultural problems are the Internet’s fault, and it should worry anybody that a nominal democracy would think like this.