June 24, 2008
Google v. Community Standards
The NY Times reports on an interesting obscenity defense tactic:
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.Obscenity convictions hinge on violating local community standards, which obviously vary from community to community, and can appear to vary greatly, at least if your gauge is the make-up of the city council or the school board's proposals. While I'm surprised (but pleased) that this evidence was allowed in (it seems as if you could argue that Google Trends proves either everything or nothing), I'll bet this tactic, should it be permitted elsewhere, ultimately demonstrates is that every community is as degenerate and deviant as the next, a realization that will hopefully collapse the entire community standard.
posted by scott pilutik at June 24, 2008 08:45 AM