Censoring Filthy Dirty Muck!!

Today in my Mass Communications class we are taking a look at censorship, who is regulating us and why?

In 2010 there was a case before the 11th Circuit Court dealing with the production of pornography on the Internet. A man produced pornographic material in California and an investigator in Florida viewed it. In this case the content clearly violated the states indecency laws and the court found:

"the materials might be legal where they were produced and almost everywhere else. But if they violate the standards of one community, they are illegal in that community and the producers may be convicted of a crime."


How is this possible, if a non-pornographic picture was published in Kansas, which may be seen and obscene in some states, and a resident of the state of Georgia opens the picture. How can the publisher be responsible, it is the World Wide Web. I feel that the courts have only seen a few of these court cases and I also feel that the Supreme Court is going to do there best to avoid a constitutional review in these situations. They will focus on community standards rather than looking at obscenity laws legality under the first amendment. 


Tastes change in correlation with times and laws that were adequate two years ago will no long have legal ground today and may be over turned. With the Internet moving at such a rapid pace and indecency, profanity, and obscenity laws barley being able to keep up, I feel that the Supreme Court should try and stay one step ahead of the game and create laws that apply to modern technologies and censorship. This in turn may avoid any conflict or controversy in the future. 


On another note, the FCC regulates broadcast and cable and their indecency, obscenity, and profanity laws are extremely vague. In the more recent past consumers have been criticizing whether there laws are in violation of first amendment rights. No one is regulating the Internet therefor with out any federal laws or federal agencies regulating this mass communication then should there be any legal implications. If something is legal in a community and illegal in another it should not be the publishers responsibility to monitor its views, that would not be possible or probable. I feel that the ISP's (Internet service providers) should be at fault in this instance. They provide Internet to specific communities, therefor they should be liable if something is deemed indecent by contemporary community standards. 


Thx 4 reading,


Brooke