As a legal term in the United States, community standards arose from a test to determine whether material is or is not

obscene An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be us ...

as explicated in the 1957RA Supreme Court decision in the matter of

Roth v. United States ''Roth v. United States'', 354 U.S. 476 (1957), along with its companion case ''Alberts v. California'', was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes o ...

. In its 6–3 decision written by William J. Brennan, Jr., the court held that material being obscene depended upon "whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest." With its emphasis on the reaction of an average person rather than that of an especially susceptible person, the court rejected applying the Hicklin test as a means of determining whether material is obscene, and the ruling represented a liberalization of the nation's obscenity laws. The concept was further refined in the matter of

Miller v. California ''Miller v. California'', 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, polit ...

in which the Court's adoption of the

Miller test The Miller test, also called the three-prong obscenity test, is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United St ...

, also based upon community standards, had the opposite effect. Chief Justice

Warren E. Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney and jurist who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the St. Paul Colleg ...

, the author of the Court's 5-4 opinion, wrote that it is not "constitutionally sound to read the First Amendment as requiring that the people of Maine or Mississippi accept public depiction of conduct found tolerable in Las Vegas, or New York City," thus opening the way for the Justice Department to prosecute adult entertainment businesses that distribute their products nationally in especially conservative jurisdictions. Some

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

companies operate community standards providing rules or guidance on what it is and what it is not acceptable to post online. On 25 April 2017 the UK House of Commons Home Affairs Committee stated: :We welcome the fact that

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

all have clear community standards that go beyond the requirements of the law. We strongly welcome the commitment that all three social media companies have to removing hate speech or graphically violent content, and their acceptance of their social responsibility towards their users and towards wider communities." Colleges and universities enforce their standards through conduct offices in their

Student Affairs Student affairs, student support, or student services is the department or division of services and support for student success at institutions of higher education to enhance student growth and development. People who work in this field are know ...

divisions.E.g
University of Oregon Affirmation of Community Standards
, published 13 April 2000, accessed 1 May 2017

References

External links

Examples of community standards by various entities:

(2005) American legal terminology Self-censorship Terms of service {{law-term-stub