https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/07/03/supreme-court-unanimously-overturns-north-carolinas-ban-on-social-media-use-by-sex-offenders/By David Post July 3 at 9:38 AM
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Packingham v. North Carolina, holding 8-0 that a North Carolina law prohibiting previously convicted sex offenders from accessing or using “social networking” websites violates the First Amendment.
The Volokh Conspiracy had more involvement in this case (on the victorious side, I’m happy to note) than usual; Eugene Volokh and a number of his students at UCLA’s Amicus Clinic wrote an amicus brief supporting the grant of certiorari (a brief that I joined, along with a number of other law professors), and, after the Court granted cert, I wrote (along with Perry Grossman) an amicus brief supporting the petitioner for several tech policy organizations (Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Center for Democracy and Technology).
The law in question made it a felony for a registered sex offender “to access a commercial social networking Web site* where the sex offender knows that the site permits minor children to become members or to create or maintain personal Web pages.”
