Friday, March 24, 2017

The Journey of Federal Laws to Protect Minors

On February 8, 1996, the Communications Decency Act or CDA was signed as Title V of the Telecommunications Act. This was the first time the subject of the internet was included in the broadcasting spectrum of a law. The CDA affected the Internet in a significant way in that it attempted to regulate both decency, when available to children, and obscenity in cyberspace.
The CDA would impose criminal sanctions on anyone who knowingly used an interactive computer service to send anyone under the age of 18 or display in a manner available to a person under the age of 18, “any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.” Four months later, June 12, 1996, a panel of federal judges blocked parts of the CDA stating that it infringed on free speech. The Supreme Court completely overturned the CDA in 2006.
Two more attempts were made to regulate children's exposure to Internet licentiousness. The Child Online Protection Act of 1998, or COPA, required all commercial distributors of "material harmful to minors" to restrict their sites from access by minors and defined obscenity by contemporary community standards that would include the showing of any sexual acts or nudity. But like its predecessor it was overturned, in fact, it never took effect due to injunctions filed against it. In 2009, the Supreme Court declined to hear further argument after three rounds of litigation.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, or CIPA, is the only law that stands of the three. CIPA requires schools and libraries to filter content deemed harmful to children as a requirement of consideration for federal funding. This law has not been without its own opponents, but the Supreme Court ruled it to be constitutional in 2004.
CDA  -  COPA  -  CIPA

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