Protecting Children in the Digital Age: Reexamining the Virtual Child Pornography Exception Under the First Amendment

Please join the Knoxville Lawyer Chapter for a timely evening event as Bess Blackburn discusses her American Mind article "Our Children are Not for Sale".

Freedom of thought and speech is deeply important to the American identity, as it should be. However, the virtual child pornography exception under the First Amendment is not a question primarily of freedom. The Supreme Court has already deemed under Chaplinsky that certain categories of speech are so heinous that they will not be protected as a freedom. There are three main reasons why virtual child pornography is outside of this class, according to case law which include the following reasonings: (1) in the past, virtual child pornography had not risen to the degree of accuracy that it now possesses given the rise of artificial intelligence; (2), virtual child pornography technically is a personal creation; and (3) virtual child pornography has no quantifiable victim.

While the law has dealt with the child pornography issue to an extent, currently, the law is insufficient to keep up with both the progressive nature of technology in the modern day and the exquisite levels of evil that those technological advances have enabled at a rapid pace and on a global scale. To combat the ever-changing technologies such as deepfakes and the threat these technologies make to American children, the virtual child pornography standard and its reasoning must be reconsidered in both American jurisprudence and policy considerations.

Featuring:

• Bess Blackburn, Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Lee

Tickets:

Free for Members and Students | $5 Non Members

Includes refreshments.

1.0 Hour CLE credit pending

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As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.