A Florida man is facing 20 counts of obscenity for allegedly creating and distributing AI-generated child pornography, highlighting the danger and ubiquity of generative AI being used for nefarious reasons.
Phillip Michael McCorkle was arrested last week while he was working at a movie theater in Vero Beach, Florida, according to TV station CBS 12 News. A crew from the TV station captured the arrest, which made for dramatic video footage due to law enforcement leading away the uniform-wearing McCorkle from the theater in handcuffs.
To the best of my knowledge, calling drawn works obscene has been upheld in courts, most often because the artist(s) lack the financial ability to fight the charges effectively. The artist for the underground comic “Boiled Angel” had his conviction for obscenity upheld–most CSAM work falls under obscenity laws–and ended up giving up the fight to clear his name.
Oh, for sure. I’m talking about laws specifically targeted to minors. “Obscenity” is a catch-all that is well-established, but if you are trying to protect children from abuse, it’s a very blunt instrument and not as effective as targeted abuse and trafficking statutes. The statutory schemes used to outlaw virtual CSAM have failed to my knowledge.
For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition
That case was statutorily superseded in part by the PROTECT Act, which attempted to differentiate itself by…relying on an obscenity standard. So it’s a bit illusory that it does anything new.
The PROTECT Act has been, so far, found to be constitutional, since it relies on the obscenity standard in regards to lolicon hentai. Which is quite worrisome. It seems like it’s a circular argument/tautology; it’s obscene for drawn art to depict child sexual abuse because drawings of child sexual abuse are obscene.