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- Sep 30, 2011
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North Carolina bans registered sex offenders from Facebook. Unsurprisingly, a sex offender wants the Supreme Court to strike down the law. Perhaps more surprisingly, he has support from 16 notable professors of constitutional law -- from left, right and center.
I’m loath to disagree with an all-star cast of colleagues that includes some of my teachers and good friends. But I think their argument goes too far.
Supreme Court precedent requires that a ban on speech allow “ample alternative channels” for expression. The North Carolina law says that registered sex offenders can’t access social networking sites that allow underage members -- which would rule out all the big networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. Are there ample alternative channels? The professors say no.
I say … yes. There's no disputing the ubiquity of social media. But there are still other ways to express your ideas and communicate with other humans. Without social media, I can still create content and publish it. I can read a vast array of opinions of others. And I can communicate directly with other people, through e-mail and other platforms.
What really bothered my colleagues was the North Carolina Supreme Court’s application of a 1994 Supreme Court case called City of Ladue v. Gilleo. In that case, the court struck down a city ordinance that banned all signs in front of private residences. Justice John Paul Stevens said that “even regulations that do not foreclose an entire medium of expression … must leave open ample alternative channels for communication.”
The North Carolina court did not make my argument -- that social media is not essential -- but instead said that the state law left “numerous” alternative social media channels, like the Paula Deen Network, where users share recipes; a local radio station’s user network; a website called Glassdoor.com, which requires users to be 18; and Shutterfly, the photo site.
In the best line of their brief, the law professors say, with some justice, that the list of Facebook alternatives proposed by the court “looks more like a parody of the ‘ample alternative channels’ analysis than a serious application” of it.
Sex Offenders Don't Have a Right to Facebook
Facebook is not a right.
I’m loath to disagree with an all-star cast of colleagues that includes some of my teachers and good friends. But I think their argument goes too far.
Supreme Court precedent requires that a ban on speech allow “ample alternative channels” for expression. The North Carolina law says that registered sex offenders can’t access social networking sites that allow underage members -- which would rule out all the big networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. Are there ample alternative channels? The professors say no.
I say … yes. There's no disputing the ubiquity of social media. But there are still other ways to express your ideas and communicate with other humans. Without social media, I can still create content and publish it. I can read a vast array of opinions of others. And I can communicate directly with other people, through e-mail and other platforms.
What really bothered my colleagues was the North Carolina Supreme Court’s application of a 1994 Supreme Court case called City of Ladue v. Gilleo. In that case, the court struck down a city ordinance that banned all signs in front of private residences. Justice John Paul Stevens said that “even regulations that do not foreclose an entire medium of expression … must leave open ample alternative channels for communication.”
The North Carolina court did not make my argument -- that social media is not essential -- but instead said that the state law left “numerous” alternative social media channels, like the Paula Deen Network, where users share recipes; a local radio station’s user network; a website called Glassdoor.com, which requires users to be 18; and Shutterfly, the photo site.
In the best line of their brief, the law professors say, with some justice, that the list of Facebook alternatives proposed by the court “looks more like a parody of the ‘ample alternative channels’ analysis than a serious application” of it.
Sex Offenders Don't Have a Right to Facebook
Facebook is not a right.
