"Secondary effects", digital technology, and free speech: the Internet and the First Amendment

Abstract

Digital technology is challenging established legal doctrine concerning sexually-oriented expression, an area of relative stability for the past thirty years. This paper examines The Child Online Protection Act and the viability of "community standards" to assess obscenity, and The Child Pornography Prevention Act and the emergence of the "secondary-effects" doctrine as rational for censoring sexual expression. It identifies the fundamental implications these two cases pose for the First Amendment.