No Facebook Ban For Sex Offenders, Supreme Court Rules Against N.C. Law

WASHINGTON, DC — The Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that banned sex offenders from social media site such as Twitter and Facebook Monday in a unanimous 8-0 ruling. The court found that the law violated the First Amendment.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who only recently joined the court, did not hear the case and did therefore did not weigh in on the ruling.

The case was based upon the conviction of a North Carolina sex offender who was discovered bragging on Facebook about beating a traffic ticket, which violated a nine-year-old law criminalizing sex offenders using internet sites that children might use, according to a New York Times report Monday. The state had argued its limiting of the virtual world was on par with limiting sexual offender access to playgrounds -- an argument the court unanimously rejected.

"In sum, to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights," the Times quoted Justice Anthony Kennedy as writing in his majority opinion.

Patch Editor Cody Fenwick contributed to this article.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite