Could there be a crackdown on online porn under a Donald Trump presidency?

The answer to that question is possibly yes, with the Republican candidate for President having signed a pledge with an anti-porn group that, on paper at least, commits him to doing just that.

Enough is Enough, who describe themselves as a nonprofit group dedicated to confronting online pornography, child pornography, child stalking and sexual predation, obtained Trump’s support with a pledge that calls for preventing the sexual exploitation of children, better enforcing Internet obscenity laws, and recognizing that exposure to Internet porn is “deforming the sexual development of younger viewers.”

While the prevention of sexual exploitation of children is an idea with universal support, it’s the latter parts of the pledge that take it into murkier waters. Although it’s commonly perceived that online pornography is protected under the first amendment in the United States, that’s not entirely true in all cases.

According to USNews The Supreme Court in the 1973 Miller v. California decision found that “obscene” content is not protected by the First Amendment, and federal obscenity laws remain on the books today.

For a website to be determined to be obscene, it only has to match if it is against “the prurient interest” according to community standards, if the images portray sexual activity specifically defined by a law in a “patently offensive” way; and if the work lacks “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Prosecutions under the law have been rare since the Clinton Administration, but do pop up from time to time, including a case in 2012 that a fetish porn producer who made videos including bodily waste and animals was found guilty of breaching obscenity laws.

Think of the children

Where the pledge goes seriously astray is section four, which despite strong evidence to the contrary, runs the line that pornography somehow impacts public health, reading:

Give serious consideration to appointing a Presidential Commission to examine the harmful public health impact of Internet pornography on youth, families and the American culture and the prevention of the sexual exploitation of children in the digital age.

While Enough is Enough is primarily a right-wing religious group with an agenda that also includes pushing pornography blocks on public Wi-Fi, it should be noted that the rally against internet porn in 2016 is perhaps now even stronger from progressive left-wing social justice warriors with a growing number demanding porn be banned on the basis that it is misogynistic and treats women as objects.

The announcement that Donald Trump has signed the pledge comes less than 24 hours after pictures of his wife Melania modeling nude were published in newspapers and across the internet, complete with slut-shaming from those who support Trump’s rival candidate in the election, Hillary Clinton.

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