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No, obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment; however, the concept is ill-defined and subjective. Some forms of expression that certain people consider obscene or offensive may be protected, and community standards of decency tend to change over time.

As Justice Potter Stewart opined in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 US 184 (1964):

"I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court's decisions since Roth and Alberts, that, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

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