Pornography And The Internet

"The Internet is a unique forum in at least one regard: while other forms of communication such as magazines or videos must be physically brought into a hostile jurisdiction, allowing you to choose whether to do business there, the content of your adult website can be viewed by anyone anywhere with a computer and Internet access. What this means for adult site webmasters is that it doesn't matter where you, your pictures, or server are located - you risk prosecution if a prosecutor anywhere views your adult website or home page and believes that the content is obscene." Perhaps that in this respect, the internet does deserve legislation is regards to obscenity. For example, is it fair that a man in Maine, who has followed to the best of his ability, the laws in that state in regards to obscenity, is prosecuted for displaying what a man in Florida deems as obscene, where the state laws regarding this issue are much more severe?

Just as we have laws against dumping garbage on the interstate, we ought to have similar laws for the information superhighway"[3]. The content that individuals can post on the Internet should be filtered and monitored to protect our children which make people feel uncomfortable. The dispute against this claim is that it takes away from the rights of adults which was concluded by the federal courts that "it violates the free speech rights of adults by broadly prohibiting the knowing transmission of 'indecent' messages to minors and displaying 'patently offensive' sexually explicit images in a manner available to children"[4]. Some believed that restricting the content on the Internet will be problematic because "it will only stifle the free flow of information, discourage the robust development of new information services and make users avoid using the system" and "Banning on-line anonymity would go much too far, stifling the 99 percent of legitimate speech in pursuit of the 1 percent of criminal speech"[5]. The controlling of content on the Internet will disrupt the flow of information which will discourage individuals to use the Internet and oppress content that is truthful and valid.

The easy accessibility of pornography and long term exposure to it from an early age can lead to damaging views about women or even correlate with violence and sex crimes. Young males especially are targeted and pressured by peers and society to consume porn and throughout time, may become desensitized to the brutality, violence and degradation depicted in it. Now that does not necessarily mean every male will go out and commit a sex crime, but it has been studied that males who view porn frequently have less empathy for rape victims and may exhibit aggressive behavior and or hold negative opinions about women. In order for these increasingly negative attitudes towards women, the policies and regulations surrounding how easy it is to find porn, very much need to be altered. Pornography can play a major role in affecting the brains of young males who watch it, and by result can influence them to be violent towards women.

The pornification (or alternatively pornographication) of the social world has created lasting effects in the lives of people that they must deal with every day (Dines 1998, p. 164). Pornification is the process by which the social and cultural world is sexualised. This occurs through the expansion of media technology and the pornography industry, as well as changes in media regulations and restrictions which allow pornographic imagery to intrude into public spaces (Tyler 2011, p. 79). This essay will offer explanations for why the pornification of the social world is occurring, how the phenomenon differs from a freedom of expression issue and is instead considered a sociological issue, what consequences and harm arise from these explanations, and will offer social measures that can be adopted in order to deal with the issue. Pornification has occurred in almost every realm of the social world, including in its unaltered form on the Internet, social media, marketing, advertising, music, fashion, sport, and art. However, this expansion of easily accessible pornified content is a stark and confronting challenge for our social world.

In the United States, pornography is considered to be neither legal nor illegal. With the exception of child pornography, there are no laws regarding the sell, distribution, creation, nor purchase of pornography. Despite studies finding it to be “degrading and detrimental to society”, Congress is not able to regulate pornography. One of the reasons is the current misinterpretation of church and state. Congress is not able to use religious standards of morality to judge obscenity.

Examining how laws may have changed or been influenced by the media's representations of sexuality is where the paper will begin. Certainly one of the side effects of the Internet is the increase of the more marginal sexualities and sexualities whose moral character is questioned or contended. The increased presence of child pornography online has changed laws in society. The penalties for purchasing, distributing, creating, and keeping child pornography are exceptional high. The penalties include public embarrassment, chemical

The omnipresence of pornography in today’s society has increased extramentally over the past few decades. What is available over the internet is remarkably unrestricted and available to anyone who looks for it. This paper will cover how and what the messages on sexuality that are being conveyed to today’s society,

For many years there has been a lot of arguments about the ethical and morality of pornography. pornography is defined as the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement. When it coms down to pornography, people have different opinions about it. Some people might find it moral because it gives them pleasure and it satisfies them physically. some individuals see it as a form of art that describes the figure of a human body in an artistic form. Others see it as immoral because it harms and degrades an individual. Personally I believe that it all depends how pornography is conducted and how we respond to it. It can be morally healthy that we like it because it makes us happy, such as it helps with your marriage relationship in intimacy, and it can be immoral when it is used in an unhealthy that we do not like it because hurts an innocent person.

     For many people, using the Internet has become practically a new way of life, especially for college students and the like.  Various types of information can be accessed at the touch of a button: anything from encyclopedias, to surveys and essays, to articles from magazines, and adult sites.  Anyone who pays for their Internet service is usually offered space for his or her own web page, and even many free services provide space for personal web pages.  All of this available space can be used for any number of reasons: posting newsletters for community groups, advertising for businesses, or just voicing one’s opinion.  For those of us who know how to use this information, or at least how

In the earlier years of the internet, many called it the “wild west” of the modern era. A place where anything went, and users governed themselves by coming up with rules that applied to their group, be it in a forum or in an online chat room. For the first seven years the world wide web existed this was the only form of control users had on content, and many did just fine this way. In 1996, however, the US Government started ramping up on content restrictions, enacting the Communications Decency Act, which prohibited “indecent” discussion online, as well as the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which extended the reaches of anti-child pornography laws that existed already by stating that any content that depicted what appeared to be a minor in a sexual situation would be considered illegal. These laws did not last, however, with both of them being mostly struck down in 1997 and 2002 respectively. In more recent history, the US House of Representatives and the Senate tried to pass the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “PROTECT IP Act”, or SOPA and PIPA respectively, in the closing months of

To paraphrase Nair, pornography is regulated by the Obscene Publications Act 1959. Officially pornography is not legal in the UK. However due to societal values changing over time since this act was written some content that would have been deemed obscene half a century ago could be more accepted nowadays. ? The internet became public in 1991, this caused more of a cultural change making the Obscene Publication Act even more outdated. Alternatively, the act can still play a part in court in modern day cases, to find obscenity. For example, in 2012 there was a court appeal decision stating “It was argued on behalf of Gavin Smith that internet relay chat falls far beyond what the Obscene Publications Act 1959 ever had in mind”. Even though the

The Internet is a global network of vast information. With a few clicks, an individual can have access to up to 200 million web-sites filled with educational and recreational information. The Internet is not regulated in anyway (Carnegie Library 1). It is accessible throughout the entire world from the North to the South, to the early morning sunrise and dark sunsets. Different ethnicity and backgrounds come together linked upon this network resembling a connection of one body in unity. Sadly, issues arise creating concern for users, focusing particularly on minors. Pornography is one of the inappropriate materials on the Internet for minors. This material is harmful to young impressionable minds. Pornography is tearing and

Humanity has struggled with determining the best option to solve their ethical dilemmas that they run into in their life. Analyzing and determining the best option to take can leave an individual lost in faith and building a relationship with God. Building a God foundation in your life will help you in every ethical dilemma that you face. The only way to solve an ethical dilemma with viewing pornography is to view the dilemma according to a Christian worldview and compare different options to solve the ethical dilemma.

In recent years, pornography has established itself as perhaps the most controversial topic arising out of the use of the Internet. The easy availability of this type of sexually explicit material has caused a panic among government officials, family groups, religious groups and law enforcement bodies and this panic has been perpetuated in the media.

“Never before in history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions” (qtd in “Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse”). The problem addressed in the quote by the U.S. Department of Justice is pornography, a 10 billion dollar industry, has made its way from discreet taboo to something that is today considered acceptable and even common. With the internet being such a common tool, it is no surprise that there is easy access to sexually explicit material. The widespread accessibility and usage of pornography has changed people’s outlook on the normality of watching such sexually explicit material, and