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Courts just allowed AI child sex abuse material because it’s ‘virtual.’ Who do you think it’s trained on?

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion permitting in-home possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, relying on the 2002 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition precedent holding that computer-generated CSAM possessed at home does not violate the First Amendment, according to the Washington Examiner. The opinion raises questions about the relationship between protected speech and generative AI, with the Examiner noting the 2002 decision did not contemplate today's AI-generated CSAM and may not apply to it.

by read1 min views1 publishedSep 19, 2026
Courts just allowed AI child sex abuse material because it’s ‘virtual.’ Who do you think it’s trained on?
Image: Washingtonexaminer (auto-discovered)

The recent 7th Circuit opinion permitting in-home possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material raises many questions regarding the relationship between protected speech and generative AI.

While most people would say CSAM of any child — real or virtual — should be illegal, the decision relies on precedent from the 2002 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition decision, holding that computer-generated CSAM, possessed in one’s own home, does not violate the First Amendment. But that decision did not contemplate the present realities and may not be applicable to today’s AI-generated CSAM.

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source & further reading
washingtonexaminer.com — original article Trump’s AI strategy will defeat America before China even tries Anthropic partners with IT company Accenture to evaluate frontier AI models Daily on Energy: Democratic governors escalate crackdown on data centers
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