WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Jim Banks of Indiana this week urged Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to reestablish the Department of Justice’s defunct Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in a letter that targets OnlyFans while repeatedly conflating “obscenity” with legal adult content.
“I write to you today out of concern for the well-being of children and welfare of the American people,” Banks begins in a letter sent to the DOJ on Monday.
Banks then lays out an argument for ramping up prosecutions of illegal “online obscenity” but ends up conflating it with constitutionally protected speech, ultimately deploying the terms “sexual content,” “adult content,” “explicit content,” “sexual material,” and “pornography” more frequently than the terms “obscenity” and “obscene.”
“Pornography damages the mental and relational well-being of those who consume it and exploits those who participate in creating it,” Banks warns. “Explicit content is not limited to OnlyFans or other porn hosting sites: widely used social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram contain and regularly display sexual material. It is neither healthy nor safe for sexual content to be so pervasive ... pornography carries consequences for children, adults, and communities.”
Banks’ letter also veers confusingly onto the problem of minors accessing adult content online, noting that the U.S. has a “profound interest” in protecting children from “adult content generally,” and that the courts have upheld efforts to prevent minors from accessing such content. However, while adult content is legally deemed “obscene to minors,” it is not innately obscene to adults, and Banks never establishes any clear connection between the disparate issues of age verification and obscenity.
When he does address illegal content, Banks points a finger directly at OnlyFans.
“OnlyFans has been exposed for allowing minors to sell explicit videos and for featuring child sex abuse content,” Banks alleges. “The site hosts other kinds of extreme and dangerous sexual content, including videos involving bestiality, incest, and acts that demean women.”
While the phrase “acts that demean women” is open to interpretation — many anti-pornography activists consider all porn to be demeaning — OnlyFans’ acceptable use policy directly addresses Banks’ other concerns, warning that the platform forbids anyone from appearing in explicit content if they are under 18 or have not completed the site’s creator onboarding process or provided a properly completed release form. It prohibits illegal activity including “actual, claimed, or role-played: exploitation, abuse, or harm of individuals under the age of 18; incest; bestiality; necrophilia; rape or sexual assault.” The policy also bans “violence or harm including prohibited role play, use of objects in any way that is likely to cause physical or mental harm, lack of express consent, extreme impact, extreme bondage, or suicide” as well as urine, excrement, and explicit images of another person without their consent.
Meanwhile, OnlyFans’ content moderation policy notes that the platform uses “state-of-the-art digital technologies paired with human moderation” to check whether content is allowed, and warns that OnlyFans will not only deactivate illegal content but will also report it to law enforcement when appropriate.
It is unclear whether Banks believes that OnlyFans intentionally violates its own rules or that its content moderation practices are slow or otherwise deficient. XBIZ has reached out to Banks’ office for clarification.
Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden told XBIZ, “FSC agrees with Senator Banks that the prosecution of CSAM should be a top priority for the Department of Justice. It's truly unfortunate that he chose to bury this important issue in an ideologically motivated demand to prosecute constitutionally protected free speech.”
Banks concludes his letter by calling for the resurrection of the DOJ’s Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, created in 2005 under the George W. Bush administration and disbanded in 2011 under the Obama administration.
“Ending obscenity prosecution was a mistake,” Banks argues. “With explicit content only a click away, there has never been a more important time to enforce our laws. I urge the Justice Department to re-establish the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, prosecute illegal content to the maximum extent permitted by law, and end this scourge once and for all.”