Facebook Is Off-Limits? Criminalizing Bidirectional Communication via the Internet Is Prior Restraint 2.0

Abstract

INTRODUCTION It is nearly universally “[r]ecognize[d] [that] the global and open nature of the Internet [is] a driving force in accelerating progress towards development in its various forms.” At the same time, the Internet has opened a forum for a hitherto non-existent criminality—cybercrime. In 2011, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received in excess of 300,000 complaints, an increase in online criminal activity for the third year in a row. With the ubiquitous Internet access that pervades modern society and its potential for abuse by criminal elements, state governments have laudably sought to prevent one form of exploitation that lurks in cyberspace—sexual predators who prey on children. Through a series of laws, states have tried to minimize the possibility of children’s exposure to Internet users who have been convicted of crimes against minors and, more often, sexual assault of a minor. One of many attempts to rein in children’s exposure to online sexual predators is through criminal statutes forbidding state sex offender registrants access to certain Internet platforms. Louisiana, Indiana, and Nebraska are three