Facts
- Lester Gerard Packingham was required to register as a sex offender in North Carolina based on a 2002 conviction involving a minor.
- North Carolina enacted N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-202.5, making it a felony for a registered sex offender to access a covered “commercial social networking Web site” if the offender knew the site permitted minors to have accounts.
- The statute defined covered sites broadly, including revenue-supported websites that facilitate social introductions, allow personal profiles or pages, and enable user communications.
- In 2010, Packingham posted on Facebook (under a pseudonym) celebrating the dismissal of a traffic ticket.
- Police linked the account to Packingham and charged him with violating § 14-202.5 based solely on accessing Facebook and posting.
- Packingham challenged the indictment on First Amendment grounds; the trial court denied the motion and convicted him.
- The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed on First Amendment grounds, but the North Carolina Supreme Court reinstated the conviction, treating the law mainly as regulating conduct and justified by protecting minors.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted review.
Issues
- Whether a statute that broadly prohibits registered sex offenders from accessing many social networking websites that allow minors to register violates the First Amendment.
- Whether the statute is unconstitutional because it restricts lawful speech without requiring illicit contact, intent, or targeting of minors.
- Whether the statute is sufficiently tailored to the State’s interest in protecting minors from sexual exploitation.
Decision
- The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the North Carolina Supreme Court.
- The Court held § 14-202.5 impermissibly restricted lawful speech in violation of the First Amendment.
- Assuming the statute was content-neutral and subject to intermediate scrutiny, it still failed because it was not narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest.
- The Court emphasized that social media sites are important venues for protected expression and information-gathering in modern life.
- Justice Alito (joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas) concurred in the judgment, agreeing the statute was unconstitutional but cautioning against reading the opinion as treating private social media platforms as a public forum for all purposes.
Legal Principles
- Laws restricting access to major channels of online communication implicate First Amendment rights even when framed as limits on “access” or conduct.
- Protecting minors from sexual abuse is a compelling governmental interest, but it does not justify sweeping restrictions on lawful speech without close tailoring.
- A broad prophylactic ban on access to wide categories of websites is unconstitutional when it burdens substantial lawful speech and is not narrowly tailored to preventing illicit conduct.
- States may pursue narrower alternatives that target conduct associated with sexual crimes, such as contacting minors online or using websites to obtain information about minors.
- Courts should be careful when applying traditional free-speech frameworks to the internet, but the novelty of the medium does not reduce constitutional scrutiny of overbroad speech restrictions.
Conclusion
The Court invalidated North Carolina’s ban on registered sex offenders accessing broadly defined social networking sites because it burdened substantial lawful speech and was not narrowly tailored to the State’s interest in protecting minors, even under intermediate scrutiny.