Law and the regulation of the obscene

The Historical Significance of Titicut Follies in Psychiatric Treatment: An Anti-Censorship Perspective

“…Arguments favoring censorship often emphasize that editing or banning information or artwork protects people from violent and disturbing content (e.g., child pornography and snuff films) and avoids individuals spreading false or hateful written or spoken matter ( Maliţa, 2019 ; Yan, 2017 ). Censorship, therefore, puts limits and occasionally negates people’s freedom of expression rights by subjecting art content and information to an obscenity screening process ( Dunkel & Hillard, 2014 ; Godfrey, 2007 ; Stewart, 2020 ; Yan, 2017 ). For example, in the United States, the Miller test (see Miller v. California, 1973 ) has been used for labeling information or artwork as obscene or appropriate for the general public ( Stewart, 2020 ).…”

“…The Miller test evaluates obscenity by examining if the content evokes excessive and appeals to sexual interests, depicts or describes in an overtly offensive way sexual interactions, and lacks artistic value (Stewart, 2020(Stewart, , p. 1256. Currently, an agreed-upon universal definition of obscene is hard to achieve in legal and social contexts (Godfrey, 2007). Potentially, an issue with defining obscenity is that individuals in positions of power (e.g., judges, social media content moderators, and elected officials) may lack the knowledge base to distinguish between decent versus obscene content and overly rely upon unreliable and invalid measures of obscenity (Stewart, 2020).…”