Marjorie Taylor Greene is planning to remove the remove “Miller Test” a key protection that sexually explicit content currently enjoys in the United States.
The “Miller Test”, a three-step test outlined by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in a 1973 ruling which determines when protected sexual content crosses the line into the unprotected realm of “obscenity”.
Marjorie Taylor Greene legislation would eliminate one of those steps, specifically the one defining “obscenity” as content that “depicts or describes” sex “in a patently offensive way”. Removing that language would mean that all sexual content, offensive or not, would fall into the unprotected definition of obscene content, which is prohibited from being transmitted across state lines.
Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced the House version of a bill on Thursday that would abolish Section 230. In April 2021, Sen. Bill Hagerty sponsored the same legislation in the Senate.
The bill introduction is largely symbolic, as Greene — a fringe Republican who previously supported QAnon conspiracy theories — has been stripped of her committee assignments. It would likewise face long odds in the Senate, even if Republicans retake the majority after November’s election. Still, the measure shows a growing appetite on the right to regulate social media platforms to their liking.
The most prevalent bills relate to age verification of sex-related websites. Seventeen states drafted porn age-verification bills, many inspired by Louisiana’s law that went into effect in January. Louisiana’s law requires websites featuring 33.33% or more pornographic content to check government-issued ID to verify users are 18 and older. Websites that don’t comply face civil penalties. Parents can sue the site if kids access it.
In Texas, a new bill requiring age verification on websites with pornographic content defines images of the female breast “below the top of the areola” as porn, potentially hitting at business advertisements. In West Virginia, a bill outlawing all sexually oriented businesses is on the docket, with a definition that includes art studios with nude models and wrestling arenas. In South Carolina a bill would criminalize using “profane language” related to “sexual or excretory organs or activities” in front of minors during performances. The punishment? Up to a decade in prison.
Some bills define porn so broadly that anatomy textbooks or sex education websites would meet them.
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