The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a law meant to punish pornographers who peddle dirty pictures to Web-surfing kids is probably an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.
The high court divided 5-to-4 over a law passed in 1998, signed by then-President Clinton (news - web sites) and now backed by the Bush administration. The majority said a lower court was correct to block the law from taking effect because it likely violates the First Amendment.
In considering the issue a third time, the court did not end a long fight, however. The majority voted to send the case back to a lower court for a trial that could give the government a chance to prove the law does not go too far.
The law, which never took effect, would have authorized fines up to $50,000 for the crime of placing material that is “harmful to minors” within the easy reach of children on the Internet.
The law also would have required adults to use access codes and or other ways of registering before they could see objectionable material online.
Wouldn’t such a law be equally dangerous to web forums as it would the usual porn sites? All it would take is someone posting some “objectionable” images, or even links to site with objectionable images, and your game fansite could be in a world of trouble if caught.
As much as I wouldn’t object to seeing SomethingAwful go the way of the dodo through a $50,000 fine and federal indictment, I really can’t argue with the free access to porn.
In reality, SomethingAwful’s forums are far closer to compliance than, say, these forums, which is a scary thing indeed.
As it stands, except when they allow read-only access to entice people into paying the $9.95 to sign up, their forums are cut off from the rest of the world. Most web forums, much like this one, may have a membership sign up that requires you to jump through a small number of hoops to join, yet are still read-only accessible to anyone who finds the URL.
God knows most mainstream gaming forums are breaking the laws that require no information to be tracked for users less than 13 years of age, when a significant number of users just went ahead and clicked the “Duh, hell yeah I’m older than 13!” button during sign up.
