Computer companies and the majority of the internet community are celebrating the demise of President Clinton’s Communications Decency Act which, as the US Supreme Court ruled yesterday, violates free speech and the first amendment of the American constitution. Internet Service Providers, content providers, filtering software companies, in fact everybody apart from a few groups claiming to represent moral communities and family interests were happy with the historic decision. The Act was put in place by Congress last year in a bid to rid the internet of obscenity, but never actually took affect because of the rumpus it caused. No sooner had the Act been signed into law in March last year than a federal judge in Philadelphia stepped in and blocked it calling for a distinction to be made between ‘indecent’ materials and ‘obscene’ ones, which relates to the first amendment (CI No 2,877). That judge’s opinion was vindicated by the 7-2 verdict yesterday. The law made it illegal to put adult-orientated material online where children could find it. Violators faced a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The law did not specifically target obscenity or child pornography, which are already illegal, but defined indecent material as anything that depicts or describes in terms patently offensive, as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs. The internet community was gathering en masse to celebrate the decision yesterday. And, as Jeff Richards, executive director of the Interactive Services Association pointed out, while the case made its way to the Court, a wealth of tools and filtering software has become available for parents and others to restrict access. The ISA, which represents companies such as America Online Inc, CompuServe Corp, Prodigy Inc, IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp, said that a Son of CDA should not be attempted, and would impair fullest development of workable solutions, such as parental empowerment, consumer education and closely-linked industry efforts with the Administration and lawmakers. But that offspring seems likely to be conceived. President Clinton said that a solution must be developed for the internet mirroring that of the V-chip for television. Some sort of rating systems may be invoked in place and content that is perceived to have some sort of social value is likely to be protected. But whatever happens, we probably haven’t seen the last of the CDA or something similar just yet.
