Citizen's Guide To U.S. Federal Law On Obscenity

[Provience]

new thread Austin

Outside of the old half joke that "work filters will flag an image if 35% or more is of a similar tone that it appears to be skin and therefore likely obscene" and the ease that a 35% tag is to create, is there any reason why, with decades of internet behind us, we cannot simply adhere to the federal regulation and guidance for what is and is not obscene (and therefore illegal)?

I'm perfectly fine using 35% as a placeholder for NSFW when posting graphic images, but on the whole, art and history should not be something that people get their jammies in a wad over (and we established most of you wear at least some kind of jammies on the regular the other day )

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity

The U.S. Supreme Court established the test that judges and juries use to determine whether matter is obscene in three major cases: Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24-25 (1973); Smith v. United States, 431 U.S. 291, 300-02, 309 (1977); and Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, 500-01 (1987). The three-pronged Miller test is as follows:

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, finds that the matter, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests (i.e., an erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion);
2. Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, finds that the matter depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way (i.e., ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, masturbation, excretory functions, lewd exhibition of the genitals, or sado-masochistic sexual abuse); and
3. Whether a reasonable person finds that the matter, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Any material that satisfies this three-pronged test may be found obscene.

 

[SanDiegoCJ]

What I want to know is who the fuck determines who an "average person" or a "reasonable person" is. That's about as vague a description as you can get.

 

[Grnd93]

What I want to know is who the fuck determines who an "average person" or a "reasonable person" is. That's about as vague a description as you can get.

My thoughts exactly

 

[Provience]

What I want to know is who the fuck determines who an "average person" or a "reasonable person" is. That's about as vague a description as you can get.

da gummit, suh!

https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1269&context=facultyarticles


https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_person

A legal standard used in negligence (personal injury) cases. The hypothetical reasonable person behaves in a way that is legally appropriate. Those who do not meet this standard -- that is, they do not behave at least as a reasonable person would -- are considered negligent and may be held liable for damages caused by their actions.

it's a legal fiction for disinterested 3rd party who is generally compliant with the law as written

 

[Provience]

intentionally vague to allow for the use of juries i.e. trial by peers, the plurality of which should be generally reasonable

 

[SanDiegoCJ]

da gummit, suh!

https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1269&context=facultyarticles


https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reasonable_person



it's a legal fiction for disinterested 3rd party who is generally compliant with the law as written

Trabslation: "reasonable person" is a fiction. It can be folded, spindled, and mutilated to fit whatever you want it to be. Short answer: it's bullshit.

 

[Filthy McChevy]

Too late, cow ain't coming back in the barn.

 

[Splib]

Trabslation: "reasonable person" is a fiction. It can be folded, spindled, and mutilated to fit whatever you want it to be. Short answer: it's bullshit.

That's perfect !! In an odor case, such as a nuisance against feces, bullshit literally, it is perfect. You can't quantitate most odor by clinical information, ie concentration, parts per million volumn. Your nose knows. There is an odor threshold where the majority of normal everyday people will say: A} No bad odor and B}, that's too much, that stinks. It isn't that cerebral or hard to un fuck what you fucks think you know. FWIW the odor threshold came up in the 2nd Amendment SCOTUS case McDonald vs City of Chicago. {gary} go dig that shit up and show us. The SCOTUS argument used a reference to exactly what you are "yammering" about now.

 

[Austin]

new thread Austin

Outside of the old half joke that "work filters will flag an image if 35% or more is of a similar tone that it appears to be skin and therefore likely obscene" and the ease that a 35% tag is to create, is there any reason why, with decades of internet behind us, we cannot simply adhere to the federal regulation and guidance for what is and is not obscene (and therefore illegal)?

I'm perfectly fine using 35% as a placeholder for NSFW when posting graphic images, but on the whole, art and history should not be something that people get their jammies in a wad over (and we established most of you wear at least some kind of jammies on the regular the other day )

https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity

Ok I have a few random thoughts on this, and I'm in no way trying to be dick ...

• 35% has been the rule for how long? It's worked for how long? Newbs should be the only ones needing a lesson on it.
• That law you posted would never work ON the internet, in an environment like this. It's way too vague, subjective and peoples personalities on here aren't always what they would be in a court room. I don't see it working
• I also don't see the SERPS following those. Their safe-search rules are diffrent and more protective of content. Granted it's probably more for children, but if we're going to rewrite the 35% rule , those guidelines, that apply too websites, are what should be looked at. Even then, thats too restrictive for, what I understand, this sites tastes too be.
• I don't take the "work filters" thing as a joke, it may have started as one, but I think as bat shit crazy as people can be these days thats that last thing I want a member here getting in trouble for while browsing the site. It extends beyond that, I don't want to be surfing wile sitting on the couch with my 3yr old and see shit on the screen she shouldn't be seeing. I know it's my job to protect her from that stuff but I started reading a topic that has nothing to do with nudity and yet somebody posts it as a joke .... well... sorry Margot ... forget you seen that.
• Give an inch ... they'll take a mile. It's the way of the internet. We decide history and artistic nudity is ok here and next thing you know somebody is posting artistic nude Kaitlyn Jenner pics in a transmission rebuild topic to be funny ... and it totally would be ... but a reasonable expectation for safe surfing has to be set.... and it was .. like 15yrs ago

I don't see the need to redefine what has worked for so long .....

 

[Provience]

well, that is the law that governs the internet, so it does work generally on the internet

 

[Austin]

well, that is the law that governs the internet, so it does work generally on the internet

It works in a courtroom about internet cases. Where jurors are vetted and chosen by attorneys making a case.

That Will Not Work on a forums site.