For decades, the Supreme Court has grappled with the task of defining obscenity and determining what speech is not protected by the First Amendment. One of the areas that has posed a challenge is obscenity, with the Court attempting to establish clear guidelines to differentiate between protected speech and material that is considered obscene.
In a landmark 1964 case, Justice Potter Stewart famously remarked, 'I know it when I see it,' when discussing obscenity in relation to a theater's desire to screen a controversial film. In 1973, the Court defined obscenity as material that is sexually explicit, patently offensive, appeals to the prurient interest, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
However, the Court has emphasized that sexually explicit material, on its own, does not automatically qualify as obscene. Recently, Texas introduced a law aimed at protecting minors online by requiring age verification for websites containing a significant amount of sexual material harmful to minors.
The state's definition of 'sexual material harmful to minors' mirrors a similar standard set by Congress in the Child Online Protection Act of 1998. This definition focuses on whether the material, when judged by the average person using contemporary community standards, appeals to the prurient interest in a manner that is patently offensive with respect to minors.
It is worth noting that the 1998 law, which sought to protect minors from harmful online content, was ultimately blocked by the courts. The ongoing debate surrounding obscenity and the protection of minors online underscores the complexities involved in balancing free speech rights with the need to shield vulnerable populations from potentially harmful material.
