Censorship

The success of the movies created a strong backlash. Religious conservatives and nativists argued that movies corrupted culture. It didn't help that the industry was so heavily dominated by people of Jewish immigrant background.

In the 1915 court case, Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio. SCOTUS votes 9-0 that movies are not protected by the First Amendment (overturned 1952). Thus, movie censorship was legal.

This situation was made worse by a series of early Hollywood scandals:

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (1887-1933) was accused of the murder of Virginia Rappe (1891-1921) in 1921.

William Desmond Taylor (1972-1922) was murdered in 1922. The crime was never solved but many Hollywood stars were implicated.

Thomas Ince (1880-1924) died after a party on William Randolf Hearst's yacht in 1924. Though officially he died of a heart attack, many rumors surrounded his death. The most spectacular was that he was shot in the head by Hearst, who may have been aiming for Charlie Chaplin who was also present. In this case, the likelihood is that Ince did die of a heart attack but sensational rumors turned his death into a famous scandal.