Community standards have the legal authority.
"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 1957RA
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."