Judge overturns ban on social media use by sex offenders

A federal judge last week struck down a Louisiana law that banned sex offenders from using social media sites, ruling that the law was overly vague and violated free-speech protections.

The law prohibited registered sex offenders who had been convicted of child pornography or another similar crime from using "social network websites, chat rooms and peer-to-peer networks."

The law defined the prohibited sites broadly. A "chat room" was defined as "any Internet website through which users have the ability to communicate via text and which allows messages to be visible to all other users or to a designated segment of all other users."

In his decision, Judge Brian Jackson noted that the law seems to ban offenders from using email, news sites that allow reader comments, Amazon, eBay and even government sites like Louisiana's official hurricane preparedness site or the website for the federal court. 

On his blog, law professor Eugene Volokh noted his website would qualify as a "chat room" and that any service that lets people create Web pages would qualify as "social networking website."

Lawyers for the sex offenders said their clients were afraid to access the Internet at all, including to research safety and technical information related to their jobs.

The government's lawyers argued the law was not overly broad because it allowed probation officers to exempt offenders from the restrictions. But Jackson disagreed, pointing to the fact that there was no guidance for which offenders should qualify for the exemption.

"The sweeping restrictions on the use of the internet for purposes completely unrelated to the activities sought to be banned by the Act impose severe and unwarranted restraints on constitutionally protected speech," Jackson wrote. He also concluded that the law was "unconstitutionally overbroad and void for vagueness."

---