Free Speech & the Internet Essay Example

ed to determine communities are: "continuity of membership; shared experiences, progress, deliberation, and goals among members; personal investment of members; established boundaries; and the ability to distinguish members from nonmembers. (Harvard) The issue of local community standards in obscenity law as tested in United States v. Thomas. The Court applied the local community standards test, as opposed to accepting a community of cyberspace standard, and allowed the prosecution to stand of two individuals who made obscene material available on the Internet. The issue argued centered on where the effects of the obscenity were felt, in the local community or in cyberspace.

Since the Internet has millions of users it may be impossible to define a cyberspace community, although in the future, with more sophisticated technology allowing for privacy, subsets of Internet users may legally constitute a community.