‘Banning porn is a slippery slope to more surveillance in Iceland’

Iceland is considering becoming the first democracy in the western world to try to ban online pornography. But as a former MI5 agent Annie Machon warns, this could be a “slippery slope” to even more censorship from the government.

The government is thinking of banning online pornography, in an attempt to protect children and reduce violence.

Proposals in the pipeline include the introduction of the same filters used by China, as well as making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards on X-rated sites.

Iceland has already passed a law that forbids the printing and distribution of pornography, the law excludes the Internet, however.

RT talked to former MI5 agent Annie Machon, who does not rule out that authorities might use tools of censorship to block not only pornography, but “whatever they want”.

RT:Western democratic nations would generally claim to oppose censorship - what about the idea of Internet openness? What about freedom of speech?

Annie Machon: Very much so. Of course I do understand that all parents want to protect their children from violent pornography, which can be easily accessible on the Internet. But there are two arguments against this. The first one being, as you mentioned, the Chinese government tries to crack down on the internet and even their geeks and hacktivists always find a way to tunnel around whatever control they could be put in. So, trying to implement censorship of this nature simply will not work practically. Especially if you are up against up the might of the porn industry which has always been one of the leading innovators with internet technology. But the second one is more moral point of view, which may sound surprising when we are talking about trying to censor porn. But it is a very slippery slope to start going down the path of any sort of censorship for whatever reason. Because of course once you in a position where authorities can look into what is being passed down the wires and then choose to block whatever they want (be it violent porn to begin with). But then, of course, they have tools to look into other communications and block other things in the future. So it is a very slippery slope onto the liberties front to begin to go down.   

RT:If Iceland introduces this ban, what effect would that have on the rest of the world?

AM: I think it is unlikely that they will introduce it. But if they do, then I think it is very quickly going to be seen as failed. As I said people will find a way to tunnel around it, they will be up against the innovation of the porn industry. So, it would probably be a failed experiment within a year or two. But I think if a western country seen to be doing this it will be a justification for other more totalitarian regimes to say “Well, you know, Iceland’s doing this. So we can do it, too.” And of course it might well encourage ill thought out policies in other western democracies. But it is interesting, because I’m actually in Iceland at the moment doing a speaking and media tour for an organization called law enforcement against prohibition – or LEAP. This whole issue of censorship is very a hot topic here. But everything used to be a hot topic here, because post the financial crash they had to rethink in Iceland about the nature of their democracy, whether they need or not to redraft the constitution. And they are very open about the whole idea of media freedoms and also very open about the idea of pornography. So, the only issue they really have here is that they are concerned about the increasing violence they see in the easily accessible pornography and they’re not trying to ban porn full stop. It is a very open, very liberal society.  

RT:Critics have been pointing out that censorship technology is linked to surveillance technology. If Iceland gives the green light to this ban, can we be sure it will be just about child protection?

AM: We absolutely can’t. The issue of pedophilia, the issue of porn and the issue terrorism have always been used to justify any sort of attempt to censorship and a crackdown on a freedom of the Internet. And this is crucial for the development of the global society. As soon as you start allowing certain technologies to be input onto the internet to stop and censor certain information they will be misused by police, by intelligence agencies and as soon as we are aware that the internet is being censored and we might be being watched or monitored all times, then we start to self-censor as well. We will not download books or information as freely as we might in case it might be deemed radical or subversive and we are going on some domestic extremists hit-list. And then, of course, we self-censor what we say on the internet as well. So, it will be very quick to slide in some sort of Orwellian big brother dystopia. I mean, we probably slide down in that rabbit hole faster than any of us could say Aaron Swartz.