Filters/Cybersitte

[jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu]

Ronnie Morgan <rmorgan at Harding.edu> wrote:

>For me, the issue was never about the information that is available on the
>net.  The issue is the pornography.  Porn is not information...

Porn is certainly information to a feminist scholar studying the evolution
of this particular form of exploitation.  Porn is not obscenity; it is also
constitutionally protected expression.

"Porn" is a canard.  It's not the issue.

I'm not particularly in favor of porn, though my personal approach to
dealing with it in the context of my children is to explain to them why it's
not appropriate rather than to block their access to it.  Both personally
and professionally, I find that the traditional U.S. legal distinction
between pornography and obscenity is completely adequate, and applies almost
as well on the Internet as it does in hardcopy.  Porn is free speech; you
don't have to buy it, but you can't prohibit it.  Obscenity is not
constitutionally protected free speech, even though obscenity IS
"information".

There IS, though, a legal and moral problem with obscenity that arises more
on the Internet than in print.  Obscenity is defined relative to community
standards, and the Internet tends to define a virtual community that doesn't
correspond to our traditional notions of "community".  Which community
should the Internet standard for obscenity be based on?