Joe Perez is a writer striving to take Integral approaches to issues in ordinary life, culture, politics, sexuality, and spirituality. A graduate of Harvard University and The Divinity School at the University of Chicago, his books are 
(Integral Books, 2007) and 
(Lulu, 2006). 
Google knows obscenity when it sees it
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008The prevailing US legal standard that the definition of obscenity is ruled by “community standards” is running into a novel 21st-century argument: just ask Google. “What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer” by Matt Richtel of The New York Times says:
Considering the accessibility of online pornography, how should communities shape local obscenity standards in the digital age?
That is often a tricky question because there is no simple, concrete way to gauge a community’s tastes and values.
The Internet may be changing that. In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought.
In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm…
While it’s far from clear that US courts will allow the “Google says all my neighbors are doing it too” defense, I would bet that it’s only a matter of time before this sort of defense finds sympathetic juries and judges. For far too long, courts have imposed “community standards” based on extremely poor data. Who really knew how many residents of Pensacola, Florida, were more interested in “orgy” than “apple pie”? Well, now we know.
The shift in attitudes towards obscenity that could be on the horizon is huge. Currently our laws prohibit private behavior (reading pornographic magazines or Web sites) based on the unacceptability of such behavior in the public areas. If you live in a spot where there are no adult bookstores or other vendors of erotica, your private behavior may be legally controlled by the sex police.
Truly, private sexual behavior has been hidden in our culture’s collective unconscious. Window blinds and deadbolted doors have kept our sexual shadows in the closet for way too long. But now the Google knows with greater objectivity than ever before where our true values lie. Those aren’t the sanitized and starched values we all pay lip service to, and perhaps strive to uphold. Our true values are baser, cruder, and obscene, often twisted by the publicly enforced morality that compels us to keep our shadows secret.
The revolution we may soon be witnessing is that many bright spotlights will be shone upon any locality that dares to prosecute the “obscenity peddlers”. Public officials will no longer prosecute erotica sellers by gay and retire to their homes to cruise the XXX Web at night (that is, if the “Google defense” becomes accepted by the courts).
As our shadows are revealed, expect a growing public sentiment will eventually create new, safer and more socially acceptable ways of enjoying Internet porn without running afoul of the law. Look for renewed efforts to create Internet “red light districts” such as the .xxx domain, a development long resisted by conservative moralists. Who would have thought that Google search data could have such a potentially therapeutic effect on our sick culture?
Sphere: Related Content