Wednesday, June 25, 2008

What's Obscene?

This is a tricky question to ask, depending who you ask the question with. It's tricky because different people have different positions or viewpoints on it. And different cultures, backgrounds as well as exposures would define obscenity differently. More than that, depending on who one may be with, the answer may also vary.
So, when this question was asked in a courtroom in Pensacola, Florida, the defense lawyers for a pornographic website operator is using Google to help fight his case. He argued that simply because there are more people searching for sexually explicit materials on the web in that community than say for subjects on "apple pie" or "watermelons" it should be acceptable in that community.
Would the distribution of obscene pornographic materials be viewed as undesirable when there are many more people wanted it and presumably viewing them in the privacy of their own bedrooms? Does Google really have the answer or could it provide sufficient data to this defense lawyer to win his case?
At the end of the day, it's not just about what people want, no matter how many there are but what's right from wrong, a moral issue. Still, how do we determine what's right from wrong without a mutually understood or agreed standard?
Where and what is your standard? How would you base that standard on?

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