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 On 25 May 2021 the Icelandic Parliament agreed to provide financial state support to private media companies. With amendments made to the Media Act No 38/2011, state funding will provide for ad hoc subsidies to private media companies, covering part of their editorial costs for the dissemination of news, and news related content, and also the cost of social issues coverage. All private news media service-providers, tv, radio, print and web media, can apply to receive the media subsidies but will have to fulfil certain criteria put forth in the newly amended Media Act. The total funding...

In a highly topical decision on hate speech, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that the right to freedom of expression and information as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can be limited when it is necessary to protect the right of homosexual persons to enjoy human rights to exactly the same extent as others, irrespective of their sexual orientation (see also Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania, IRIS 2020-3/21). It found that a criminal conviction in Iceland for hate speech against homosexuals, expressed via the Internet, had not violated...

Fjölmiðlanefnd (the Icelandic Media Commission) has started an awareness campaign in order to help people detect fake news and disinformation. The campaign is called Stoppa, hugsa, athuga (Stop, think, check), and is a collaboration between the Icelandic Media Commission, Embætti landlæknis (the Directorate of Health in Iceland) and Vísindavefurinn (the University of Iceland’s Web of Science), with support from Facebook. The focus of the campaign is to increase people’s awareness of and ability to detect fake news. The aim is to enhance critical thinking...

In a decision of 17 May 2019 the Icelandic Media Commission came to the conclusion that the national lottery draw in Iceland should be regarded as advertising and thus should count towards the total amount of advertising minutes permitted within an hour. The case is considered to be a landmark case since the national lottery draw has been allowed for decades without the event being categorised as a "commercial communication". In 2018 the Media Commission received a complaint from a commercial media company concerning a possible breach of advertising rules in connection with the national lottery...

In Iceland, a person (hereafter, X) posted a critical and defamatory comment on a Facebook page, commenting on a recent interview given by Egill Einarsson, against whom complaints had been formulated concerning the rape of women. At the material time, Einarsson was a well-known personality in Iceland who, for years, had published articles, blogs and books and had appeared in films, on television and other media, under pseudonyms. Upon completion of the police investigation, the public prosecutor dismissed all cases against Einarsson because the evidence which had been gathered had not been sufficient...