#188: Sex Offenders and Social Media

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2017

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sex offenders are often banned from playgrounds and schoolyards, but what about social networks? Should policymakers treat the virtual world the same as the real world? North Carolina passed a law in 2008 banning sex offenders from accessing websites where information is exchanged and minors can participate, including social media platforms like Facebook. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the North Carolina law violates free speech, meaning sex offenders can use Facebook as long as they’re not using it to commit crimes. What does this case mean for digital free speech? How should policymakers proceed from here? Evan is joined by Katie Glenn, Policy Counsel at the 1st Amendment Partnership. For more, check out their website.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy podcast. I'm in Swartstrauber. On today's show, should sex offenders be allowed to use social media? A North Carolina's law said no, Supreme Court said yes. How did we get to a point where the Supreme Court in North Carolina were battling over sex
0:21.6	offenders' rights to use social media?
0:23.8	And what does this case say about broader themes, like how similar the virtual world is to the
0:29.4	real world and is a playground or a school where you can clearly restrict someone from being
0:34.5	present is that similar to a social media site where of course
0:38.2	children are able to access and use the platform. Joining me to discuss this interesting case is
0:42.9	Katie Glenn, policy council at the First Amendment Partnership, whose mission is to promote and
0:47.9	protect religious freedom for people of all faiths. Katie, thanks for joining the show.
0:51.9	Thank you for having me. So the guy who started this
0:54.4	whole case is Lester Packingham, a registered sex offender. He was arrested in 2010 for posting a
1:00.6	Facebook status about a dismissed ticket. He said, quote, no court, no fees, praise be to God. Wow.
1:07.1	How did that post end up kicking off a Supreme Court battle over whether sex offenders are allowed to use Facebook?
1:13.9	So several years ago, North Carolina passed a law that kept all sex offenders, everyone on the registry in that state, off of basically all social media sites, but a lot of other websites we wouldn't traditionally consider
1:28.4	to be social media, things like Amazon, eBay, WebMD, and IMDB.
1:33.3	So a lot of e-commerce and just informational websites too?
1:36.1	Basically any website where a person can make a username and interact with others, even if it's
1:42.6	not required to make a username to use that
1:44.8	website. So there's even discussion of whether Wikipedia would fall under this, which I know I use
1:49.4	all the time. I think most of us do. So he posted on Facebook about this traffic ticket that he
1:58.6	beat. There had been no use of the internet with his
2:02.6	initial case. There was nothing in his specific probation that required him to stay off the
2:08.4	internet other than this broad law. But someone saw the post in the local police department.
	...

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