{"id":2615,"date":"2021-01-07T05:33:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-07T10:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/?p=2615"},"modified":"2021-01-06T20:38:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T01:38:53","slug":"is-an-offensive-snapchat-free-speech-protected-by-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/is-an-offensive-snapchat-free-speech-protected-by-the-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Is an Offensive Snapchat Free Speech Protected by the First Amendment?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent case, the Third Circuit held in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eff.org\/files\/2020\/07\/14\/2020-06-30_bl_v_mahanoy_3d_cir_opinion.pdf\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District<\/span><\/em><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> that a profane &#8220;snap&#8221; posted by a teenage girl was protected speech under the First Amendment.\u00a0 Today, any teen or young adult has grown up with Snapchat, an app that allows users to send their friends picture messages that disappear within a few seconds.\u00a0 Unless you take a \u201cscreenshot\u201d of the message, the \u201csnap\u201d is gone forever.\u00a0 In the <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Levy\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">case, student B.L.\u2019s Snapchat resulted in her school suspending her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What happened in Levy?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">B.L., a student at Mahoney Area High School, tried out for the cheerleading team as a rising freshman, and she made the junior varsity team.\u00a0 The next year, instead of moving up to the varsity team, she remained in junior varsity.\u00a0 She was frustrated and disappointed that she had not moved up to the varsity team.\u00a0 The following Saturday, while spending time with friends. B.L. did what any teenager would do and took her frustrations to social media.\u00a0 She sent a Snapchat with her middle fingers up with the caption \u201cf**k school, f**k softball, f**k cheer, f**k everything.\u201d\u00a0 She posted this to her Snapchat \u201cstory,\u201d meaning that the picture was visible to everyone on her friends list for 24 hours before disappearing from the app.\u00a0 One of B.L.\u2019s teammates took a screenshot of the story and sent it to her cheerleading coach.\u00a0 As a result, B.L. was kicked off the cheerleading team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/is-an-offensive-snapchat-free-speech-protected-by-the-first-amendment\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Is an Offensive Snapchat Free Speech Protected by the First Amendment?\u00a0\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent case, the Third Circuit held in Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District that a profane &#8220;snap&#8221; posted by a teenage girl was protected speech under the First Amendment.\u00a0 Today, any teen or young adult has grown up with Snapchat, an app that allows users to send their friends picture messages that disappear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment-law"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is an Offensive Snapchat Free Speech Protected by the First Amendment?\u00a0 &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; January 7, 2021<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent case, the Third Circuit held in Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District that a profane &quot;snap&quot; posted by a teenage girl was protected speech under &#8212; January 7, 2021\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/is-an-offensive-snapchat-free-speech-protected-by-the-first-amendment\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Is an Offensive Snapchat Free Speech Protected by the First Amendment?\u00a0 &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; January 7, 2021\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"In a recent case, the Third Circuit held in Levy v. 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