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Topics: News, US News, Adult Industry
Gerrard Kaonga
A Republican senator has been attempting to push a bill through that would essentially ban all online pornography in the US.
Utah Senator Mike Lee and Republican representative of Illinois Mary Miller have put forward a bill titled the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.
The pair hope to have a firmer definition as what constitutes as 'obscene content', meaning that this would bring about an amendment to the Supreme Court's 1973 'Miller test' and create a national definition of what the term constitutes.
The bill would ultimately tackle what they have deemed 'obscene' content at a federal level and make it easier to prosecute those who share it.
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A May press release from Lee’s website goes into greater detail on what they are hoping to achieve.
The bill argues the current definition of obscenity is 'difficult to assess and prosecute' and the 'current legal definition of obscenity was taken from a Supreme Court case argued in 1973', branding the case's 'standards' as 'subjective and vague' and 'difficult to apply with certainty to any given material'.
"Using a pre-internet standard for modern times presents serious challenges - particularly when states use differing definitions for 'obscenity' - and allows criminals to evade prosecution," the bill argues.
The latest update has seen the bill read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for review in May earlier this year.
If approved it will go to the US Senate for voting.
Critics of the bill have pointed out that it would appear to be rather a 'nanny state' and authoritarian move by the US government.
It could also drastically impact many people through out the adult industry and could potentially even be applied to conversations, images or videos shared between two consenting adults.
Lee's website explains the 'new definition' for obscenity would 'remove dependence on ever-changing and elusive public opinion, replacing ambiguity with practical standards to make obscenity identifiable'.
The act subsequently suggests defining obscenity within the Communications Act of 1934 as content that 'taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion'.
This would also include anything that 'depicts, describes or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person' and finally 'taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value'.