[PLUG-TALK] Porn on the Net...

Michael Moore moore.michael.m at gmail.com
Tue Oct 27 17:56:39 UTC 2009


On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Michael Robinson
<plug_1 at robinson-west.com> wrote:
> is very easy to find if you aren't filtered.
>
> Why?
>
> I know that people are going to say freedom of speech is why,
> but let's ask some questions first and look at the nature of
> porn a bit.
>
> Well, I shouldn't be using the term porn without a definition.
>
> Porn is anything that is likely to cause the average man or
> woman to be sexually aroused where it is not socially acceptable
> for them to be so.

In legal terms, obscene material is defined as:

1) material that is prurient in nature, that depicts or describes
sexual conduct in an offensive manner

2) material that lacks any social, scientific, political, or educational value

3) material that violates community standards of decency

Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.  See:

http://www.findlaw.com/01topics/06constitutional/cases.html

for a good list of Supreme Court rulings in obscenity cases.

> What would happen if anything that fit my definition of porn
> was not accessible via the Net to anyone without a credit card?
> Could such a law be enforced?  I would support a law using
> my definition of porn as the standard that requires identifying
> oneself to see pornography.  I'd like to see porn banned from
> the Net entirely, but that is asking a lot.

Such a law could be enforced, if it applied to websites that met the
legal definition of obscenity.  Since obscenity has no First Amendment
protection, there's nothing to stop any legislative body from passing
laws restricting access to it or banning it altogether.  But such a
law could not be enforced effectively ... we already have a "CAN-SPAM"
law, yet we all still get spam.  Just like with the spam situation, a
few people here and there would go to jail, and there would still be
lots of obscene material widely available on the Internet.

Michael M.



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