Community Standards, Sex, Violence and Blogs

The New York Times reports on the use of search engine data to establish community standards for web sites, What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer: “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 Times also reports that most of the buyers of Grand Theft Auto found it acceptable that the violent, mature-rated video game include hidden sex scenes and chose not to file for a claim in a class action settlement. Hidden Sex Scenes Draw Ho-Hum, Except From Lawyers: “Lawyers who sued the makers of the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas profess to be shocked, simply shocked, that few people who bought the game were offended by sex scenes buried in its software. Any buyer upset about hidden sex in the violent game could file a claim under a settlement the lawyers struck with the game’s maker, Take-Two Interactive. Of the millions of people who bought the San Andreas version after its release in 2004, exactly 2,676 filed claims.”
And, not really related, the state of Kentucky will filter blogs on its computers under the same standard it treats all other websites. Greg Beck writes at Internet Cases, Kentucky settles banned blogger’s First Amendment challenge to Internet filtering policy: “Political blogger Mark Nickolas yesterday settled his lawsuit against Kentucky, in which he challenged the state’s policy of blocking blogs on state-owned computers. The settlement provides that Kentucky will no longer target websites for restriction just because they are blogs, and will instead treat them in the same way it treats other websites with similar content. In other words, classifying a website as a ‘blog’ is no longer a good enough reason to ban a site on the state’s computers.”