The Icelandic initiative for pornography censorship

This paper outlines the Icelandic legal framework regarding pornography and the recent public debate about what constitutes pornography, censorship, and the role of the state in enforcing national legislation on the internet – a transnational medium. Iceland, an island of 300,000 people, has become synonymous with ambitious freedom of expression initiatives. International commentators were thus taken by surprise when the Minister of the Interior announced his intentions to extend existing laws to regulate pornography within Iceland's borders, sparking a heated debate characterized by conflicting understandings of the character of and necessity for censorship.