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Washington, D.C. – A new bill introduced by Republican lawmakers seeks to redefine obscenity standards and crack down on the online pornography industry.
Spearheaded by Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Representative Mary Miller of Illinois, the “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act” targets the legal grey areas that have allowed the proliferation of explicit content online. The bill aims to update the Communications Act of 1934 and amend the Supreme Court’s “Miller Test,” established in 1973 to determine what constitutes obscenity.
Senator Lee emphasized the need for updated regulations, stating, “Obscenity isn’t protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children. Our bill updates the legal definition of obscenity for the internet age so this content can be taken down and its peddlers prosecuted.”
The proposed legislation seeks to refine the “Miller Test,” specifically targeting the second prong, which assesses whether content depicts sexual conduct “in a patently offensive way.” The new bill proposes defining obscenity as content that “depicts or describes actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person.”
Supporters argue that the current legal framework is outdated for the digital age, where children have easy access to online pornography. Lee previously advocated for a porn ban on X and introduced the SCREEN Act to mandate age verification on pornographic websites.
Representative Miller echoed these sentiments, calling online porn “alarmingly destructive and far outside the bounds of protected free speech.”
This isn’t the first time Senator Lee has introduced such legislation; similar bills in 2022 and 2024 failed to gain traction in the then-Democrat-controlled Senate. The fate of this new bill remains uncertain, but it signals a renewed push to regulate online adult content.
The Daily Caller News Foundation contributed to this report.