What Are Community Standards When It Comes To Obscenity Online?
With a guy found guilty of distributing hardcore pornography online sentenced to 46 months in prison, plenty of people are beginning to question obscenity laws and how they apply to the internet. As you probably know, the standard for “obscenity” is a bit subjective — as it’s supposed to be based on local “community standards.” That may have made sense when a local community was clearly definable, but it becomes a lot trickier when communities are a lot more complex. Not only does the internet challenge traditional concepts concerning legal jurisdiction, but it also changes how you define a “community.” Choosing a local community based on geography makes very little sense when it comes to an online obscenity case, as there’s probably not much of a chance that folks in that community were actually impacted by the content. Yet, in this case, prosecutors did some jurisdiction shopping, and found a conservative local community in which to file the case. That could lead to some very danger
