Ohio Net Censorship Law Struck Down 121
rfc1394 writes "C|Net reports that a federal judge has struck down as unconstitutional a portion of an Ohio statute which attempted to prevent minors from seeing material which would be 'harmful' to them, but was so overbroad that it would have covered a considerable amount of material which is legal for adults to view. Basically, if a website operator had reason to believe the material they were showing was visible to minors, and if the material was considered to be harmful to them, they would be in violation of the law. Since about 1/6 of the users of the Internet are minors, it's trivial to argue that anyone running a website would be aware that the material they have is visible to minors even if they had no intention of doing so."
1/6? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know, I know, I must be new here. But does anyone happen to have any more reliable statistics?
Re:What happens - DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
The paper or source could would indeed be speech. All of copyright law is something of a limitation on the freedom to speak, and courts have consistently and continually recognized the tension between the two. The Constitution itself recognizes limits on speech -- after all, it is the basis for Copyright law. (The DMCA itself was actually passed under the Commerce Clause, but we'll ignore that hiccup for this.) There limits on speech besides copyright, such as threatening another or the overused example of yelling fire in a crowded theater. Libel and slander are forbidden, though they are elements of speech.
All this is to say that using the phrase "free speech" doesn't get you a pass to say whatever you want. Yes, the Constitution and the courts have been very protective of the First Amendment, and generally interpreted it broadly, but there are limitations.
Re:Feminist eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Women can enjoy sex just as much as men can. It's fantastical to think I know, but it's true! Even if a camera is pointed at them. For a small % of women(and men) the thought of it being seen by hundreds of thousands/millions of people actually makes the sex even hotter and more fun.
Re:This is very bad... (Score:3, Interesting)
Thankfully this is a free market. If you get your proposal through, you do know that people will leave Time Warner for their internet connection by the masses don't you? There are plenty of good alternatives for cable and internet, there is no pressing need for anyone's service to be Time Warner. When you block out someone's favorite blog site or social networking site because some material on that site may be objectionable you will drive customers to another ISP that does not restrict access.
It is futile. You can do a google image search on porn and view all kinds of pornographic images through googles own site. Are you going to block google? Are you going to block myspace because a few people have objectionable (to you) photos? You take away a few of the major player and people will abandon the service.
You are making a proposal that will drive the value of the shares you and others own down.
I am not in favor of minors viewing pornography in any way, but to restrict everyone's access based on trying to restrict the access of a few is not the way to solve this problem.
in all my life (Score:5, Interesting)
In all my life I've never seen a scientific study about what kind of content has the potential to harm children and why. I'm sure most of my adult peers managed to expose themselves to harmful content as children. Only the least enterprising children fail to accomplish this. And what is the end result? We're all convinced we came out fine, by the skin of our teeth, but the next child won't? What exactly was impared? Our gullibility? Our willingness to vote morons into power?
Obviously there are some children who are adversely affected by coverage of the real world on the six o'clock news. But I have a feeling this bill is not targetted at that content.