Cybersex: regulating sexually explicit expression on the Internet

While the First Amendment restricts the power of the government to control access by adults to sexually explicit expression that is not obscene, the government may restrict access by children, provided that those restrictions do not limit adults to reading only "what is fit for children." Controlling access by children presents special problems in the context of broadcasting, because broadcast programming is accessible to children too young to read and because of the impossibility of segregating adults and children in the audience. The Supreme Court therefore permits the government to require "channeling" of sexually explicit programming to times when fewer unsupervised children are in the audience, to facilitate parental control over children's access to sexually explicit material. Although Internet content includes less than one percent of sexually explicit expression, that material has been the subject of intensive media and government attention. Much of that attention ignores (1) the high level of constitutional protection applicable to non-obscene, sexually explicit expression; (2) features of the Internet which facilitate controlling access by children to sexually explicit expression far more effectively than in broadcasting or print media; and (3) the First Amendment values served by permitting expression of all forms on the Internet.