As a legal term in the United States, community standards arose from a test to determine whether material is or is not obscene as explicated in the 1957 Supreme Court decision in the matter of Roth v. United States.
[1] 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.
"[2] 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.
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, 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.
[4] Some social media companies operate community standards providing rules or guidance on what it is and what it is not acceptable to post online.