https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit... From the ruling, copied from ht

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit... From the ruling, copied from https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZS.html: >Held: The prohibitions of §§2256(8)(B) and 2256(8)(D) are overbroad and unconstitutional. Pp. 6—21. > In contrast to the speech in Ferber, speech that is itself the record of sexual abuse, the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not “intrinsically related” to the sexual abuse of children. While the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, the causal link is contingent and indirect. The harm does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts. The Government’s argument that these indirect harms are sufficient because, as Ferber acknowledged, child pornography rarely can be valuable speech, see id., at 762, suffers from two flaws. First, Ferber’s judgment about child pornography was based upon how it was made, not on what it communicated. The case reaffirmed that where the speech is neither obscene nor the product of sexual abuse, it does not fall outside the First Amendment’s protection. Emphasis on the last sentence, with the triple negative.