Since its creation, the Internet has been viewed as something special.<\/p>\n
In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union et al<\/em>, a three-judge District Court described the Internet as \u201ca unique and wholly new medium<\/a> of worldwide human communication.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Understandably, legislators began crafting Internet-specific laws that deviated from the usual regulatory precedents in other media. To give an example, 47 U.S.C \u00a7\u00a0230 provides immunity to online providers from liability for publishing most kinds of third party content. In the 1990s, 47 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a0 230<\/a> was enacted, in relevant part, to \u201cpreserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet\u201d and to \u201cpromote the continued development of the Internet.\u201d Some have referred to this phenomenon as \u201cInternet exceptionalism<\/a>\u201d because, for example, 47 U.S.C \u00a7\u00a0230 treats online providers more favorable than offline publishers\u2014even when they publish the exact same content. Today, regulatory responses to social networking sites serve as a prominent example of Internet exceptionalism. Instead of treating Facebook like other similar websites, legislators have pursued social network site-specific laws, such as a law requiring age verification. However, Internet exceptionalism can create real problems. As demonstrated by 47 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a0230, these laws can provide an unjustified advantage to one group. On the other hand, these laws can potentially hinder a business\u2019 ability to compete with other offline competitors. Should legislators craft laws applicable only to social media sites because social media is in some way unique from various other forms of media?
\nIn order to justify an exception, the legislators would first have to define social media in a way that would distinguish it from other media. The California legislature made an attempt to specifically regulate social media account login credentials by requiring criminals on probation to disclose all logins to their probation officer on demand. However, the law uses broad language that instead covers all electronic data\u2014both data online and data off. In California, an individual on probation must provide \u201call passwords to any social media sites, including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, MocoSpace, MySpace, or anything similar. And shall submit said sites to search at any time with or without a warrant by a peace officer.\u201d The condition requires the offender to submit all<\/em> passwords for any<\/em> social media site. But what exactly is a social media site?
\nIn People v. Lopez<\/em>, Defendant Lopez argued that the term social media was too vague, unclear, and ambiguous. 2016 WL 297942 (Cal. App. Ct. 2016). The court agreed with Lopez that the term lacks a clear definition in California law. The court then defined \u201csocial networking\u201d and \u201csocial network\u201d using the Oxford English Dictionary. As a result, the court defined \u201csocial media sites\u201d insanely broad: any website where users are able to share and generate content and find and connect with other users of common interests. Sounds quite a lot like the Internet, generally. If social media is something so unique as to justify carving out specific legal exception, the legislators necessarily have to explain how social media sites are unique or different from the Internet or other forms of media generally.
\nDefendant Lopez next argued that the statute is unconstitutional because it is overbroad. The court compares the Lopez<\/em> case to People v. Ebertowski<\/em> (2014), in which that court concluded: \u201c[d]efendant\u2019s constitutional privacy rights are not improperly abridged by the password conditions any more than they are by the search condition.\u201d 228 Cal.App.4th 1170, 1176. As a result, the court held that the state\u2019s interest in preventing continued criminal behavior (specially gang affiliation) outweighed the minimal invasion of Lopez\u2019s privacy invasion. Yet, the inability to sufficiently define social media sites should lead a court to a reasonable inference that the purported site-specific law is unjustified as an overbroad restriction. Those on probation are going to feel as though they need to disclose, on demand, every single login credential in order to avoid potentially serious jail time. Would online video gaming be included? Is Amazon included (Amazon now allows users to connect to other users in order to get information such as product reviews)? If Amazon is included, does that mean all online retailers are included? A law mandating disclosure of insufficiently defined materials should without question be held unconstitutional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since its creation, the Internet has been viewed as something special. In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union et al, a three-judge District Court described the Internet as \u201ca unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication.\u201d Understandably, legislators began crafting Internet-specific laws that deviated from the usual regulatory precedents in other media. To …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7253,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3874\/revisions\/7253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}