When may the government ban child pornography?

🇺🇸 Constitutional Law • First Amendment - Free Speech CONLAW#131

Legal Definition

may be completely banned, even if not obscene. However, pornography involving or young-looking actors may not be banned.

Plain English Explanation

Any type of material that depicts the sexual abuse of children can be completely banned under the law, regardless of if it is considered "obscene" or not. That being said, this generally (and historically) only applies to real life children. In other words, an adult pornography film featuring an adult who appears to be a child/underaged is not the same thing. Neither is cartoon or computer depictions of children. The goal here is focused on protecting children from harm, not necessarily preventing the creation of content that may resemble (purposefully or not) harmful acts with children.

That being said, as I write this, it is 2024 and the law is struggling to keep up with the new photorealistic A.I. generated images and videos that appear to be getting special attention from the law. Even though these are technically "computer generated images," they are so drastically different that states are beginning to pass laws to restrict them and it is unclear how such laws will survive constitutional scrutiny.

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