Obscenity In The Internet Essay

Obscenity, in terms, refers to, “any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time.” Derived from the Latin obscaena (offstage) a cognate of the Ancient Greek root skene, because some potentially offensive content, such as murder or sex, was depicted offstage in classical drama, the word can be used to indicate a strong moral repugnance. In other words, the word can also be said to mean “the character or quality of being obscene or an act, utterance, or item tending to corrupt the public morals by its indecency or lewdness.” Talking in legal terms, obscenity applies to anything offensive to morals and is often equated with the term Pornography. But Pornography is a more limited term, which refers to the erotic content of books, magazines,

What is nude art or sexually explicit thing for one person may be obscene or porn for another. Obscenity on the Internet is not a common crime, the Internet has provided a medium for the facilitation of crimes like obscenity or pornography. Cyber obscenity or any lewd act done through technological means is the trading of sexually expressive materials within cyber space. Even though the Indian Constitution guarantees the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression, it has been held that a law against obscenity is constitutional. The Supreme Court has defined obscene as “offensive to modesty or decency; lewd, filthy, repulsive”. It is very difficult to testify whether any pornographic material is illegal or not, one particular pornographic material may be illegal in India but not in other countries. The test for what is obscene or not was first laid down in the case Regina v. Hicklin,where it was stated that obscene means a tendency to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may