{"id":431,"date":"2012-06-16T16:27:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-16T16:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/\/?p=431"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:30","slug":"the-best-intentions-a-constitutional-analysis-of-north-carolinas-new-anti-cyberbullying-statute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/articles\/the-best-intentions-a-constitutional-analysis-of-north-carolinas-new-anti-cyberbullying-statute\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Intentions: A Constitutional Analysis of North Carolina\u2019s New Anti-Cyberbullying Statute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cyberbullying, which is bullying using technology and\/or the Internet, is a new phenomenon that has devastating effects as demonstrated by the suicide of Megan Meier as a result of cyberbullying over MySpace. To address the problem, the 2009 North Carolina General Assembly passed and the governor signed HB 1261, \u201cProtect Our Kids\/Cyber Bullying Misdemeanor,\u201d which criminalizes a large set of behaviors. This Recent Development analyzes the constitutionality based on existing First Amendment jurisprudence, including the <em>Brandenburg v. Ohio<\/em> imminent lawlessness test and the <em>Watts v. United States<\/em> true threat test. Most of the provisions of the new law fall short of these tests and are thus likely unconstitutional. As a result of vagueness as well as undefined and confusing terms in the law, it also may have a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cyberbullying, which is bullying using technology and\/or the Internet, is a new phenomenon that has devastating effects as demonstrated by the suicide of Megan Meier as a result of cyberbullying over MySpace. To address the problem, the 2009 North Carolina General Assembly passed and the governor signed HB 1261, \u201cProtect Our Kids\/Cyber Bullying Misdemeanor,\u201d which <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/articles\/the-best-intentions-a-constitutional-analysis-of-north-carolinas-new-anti-cyberbullying-statute\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,14,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431"}],"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=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7869,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/7869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}