Cite as: 521 U. S. 844 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
commercial provider. The Web is thus comparable, from the readers' viewpoint, to both a vast library including millions of readily available and indexed publications and a sprawling mall offering goods and services.
From the publishers' point of view, it constitutes a vast platform from which to address and hear from a worldwide audience of millions of readers, viewers, researchers, and buyers. Any person or organization with a computer connected to the Internet can "publish" information. Publishers include government agencies, educational institutions, commercial entities, advocacy groups, and individuals.9 Publishers may either make their material available to the entire pool of Internet users, or confine access to a selected group, such as those willing to pay for the privilege. "No single organization controls any membership in the Web, nor is there any single centralized point from which individual Web sites or services can be blocked from the Web." 10
Sexually Explicit Material
Sexually explicit material on the Internet includes text, pictures, and chat and "extends from the modestly titillating to the hardest-core." 11 These files are created, named, and posted in the same manner as material that is not sexually explicit, and may be accessed either deliberately or unintentionally during the course of an imprecise search. "Once a provider posts its content on the Internet, it cannot prevent that content from entering any community." 12 Thus, for example,
9 "Web publishing is simple enough that thousands of individual users and small community organizations are using the Web to publish their own personal 'home pages,' the equivalent of individualized newsletters about that person or organization, which are available to everyone on the Web." Id., at 837 (finding 42).
10 Id., at 838 (finding 46).
11 Id., at 844 (finding 82).
12 Ibid. (finding 86).
853
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