Internet Changed the Notion of Community Standards - Essay Example

The Internet has not changed the notion of community standards for determining if the material is legally obscene, nor can community standards criterion be preserved on the Internet.  These points will be proved in the forthcoming subsections.

Even the Supreme Court had difficulty trying to figure out how community standards would determine illegally obscene material on the Internet.  According to Marzilli (2004), “The Supreme Court considered the issue of how to apply community standards to the Internet…” (pp. 28).

Community standards are not necessarily very present on the Internet unless one counts Internet social networking sites as formal ways which try to organize information in a way that is easily digestible by readers.  Right now, as things stand, users have direct control over their options.  Community standards criterion might be very difficult to be preserved on the Internet—namely because there weren’t any standards, to begin with.  According to Curry, Riley, & Battistoni (2003), “With the Internet, the user can control very precisely the sites and information to be accessed. [However,] concerns about adult access to adult information and communications [have arisen] if [regulators] chose to protect adolescents from obscenity on the Internet” (pp. 480).  While some sites can be blocked by parents and educators, obscenities on the Internet can’t necessarily be regulated completely.  However, that does not mean that Internet regulation is not on the horizon.  According to Tavani (2009), “Despite some of the controversies and challenges that arise in schemes for regulating cyberspace, [it is] note[d] that we should not presume against Internet regulation. In fact, [there is] a 'strong moral case can be made for regulating the content of the Internet” (pp. 266).  Morally speaking, many people would like it if the content of the Internet could be regulated in terms of language use on chat rooms and social networking sites.  That is the next wave of technology that might come in handy someday, is the use of administrators, or Admin, to basically monitor the content placed online—and moderate it accordingly. 

Internet regulation is not necessarily going to be here anytime soon, as long as people want to practice free speech and not be inhibited by others’ belief systems.  It is certainly true that the Internet has also not necessarily changed the notions of community standards for material online that might be considered obscene or offensive.  Additionally speaking, it may be a very long time before community standards criterion can be implemented Read More