Read and study the following fact pattern, and answer the questions below:

DareMe, Inc. is a company that owns and operates a website called "DareMe.com." This is a content sharing website where people can post and dare people to engage in wild, crazy and sometimes dangerous and illegal behavior. The way it works is someone posts a "dare" and describes what a person has to do to complete the dare. These "dares" include silly and almost harmless acts like standing on your head and drinking a glass of sour milk without throwing up. Others are far more dangerous, like daring someone to be blindfolded and running across a busy highway. Some of the "dares" posted include illegal contact - for example, one of the dares posted was to sucker punch a stranger, and an another one was to slash the tires of a police car. The dares are posted on the website, and then other people can accept the dare. When a person accepts a dare, they have 48 hours to complete the dare and post a video on the website showing how they completed it. Sometimes, however, the dare requires the person accepting it to complete it "live" by having someone video it with a live stream feed to the website. In this case, the date and time are posted so other people can watch the person complete the dare live. Sometimes the place where the dare is to be completed is posted and 100's of people show up to physically watch the person instead of watching the live feed - this has in the past caused traffic and other problems because the crowds sometimes get really big. After the dare is completed, visitors to the website who watched the dare being completed live or as a video get to rate the person who accepted and completed the dare. The individuals completing the dares are rated on how closely they followed the instructions of the dare and how successful they were. There is also a point multiplier applied to the more dangerous acts. The people completing the dares build up points based on the number of dares they have accepted and their ratings in completing the dares. If a person gets a high enough rating, they are labeled as a "Master Daredevil" and can actually earn money from the DareMe, Inc. company.

The DareMe.com website has been up and running for 2 years, and during that time there have been at least 50 serious injuries and 5 deaths of people who have accepted the posted dares. 3 of the 5 deaths were children under the age of 17. Obviously, this is stirred a tremendous amount of controversy. As s result of the controversy, the US Congress passed a law, which was signed by the President, that requires any website that "requests, dares, or otherwise suggests that a person engage in dangerous, violent and/or illegal conduct or conduct that could result in significant bodily harm to a person" be blocked to anyone who is under the age of 18 and the law specifically requires an age verification system wherein a person most prove that he or she is at least 18 years of age before gaining access to the website. After this law went into effect, DareMe.com complied with it, and its revenues dropped by 50%.

Because the law is having such a dramatic effect on DareMe, Inc., the company challenged the law as being unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The lower courts have upheld the law, and now DareMe, Inc. has appealed it to the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court is set to release its decision on the matter.

THE QUESTION PRESENTED:

Assume you are one of the Supreme Court Justices, and have to write the opinion of the Court deciding that the law is either constitutional or unconstitutional. Using the Brown v. Entertainment Merchant's Ass'n case, draft a short essay (no more than 5 or 6 paragraphs) finding the law that blocks access to the website to anyone under 18 as being constitutional or unconstitutional - final conclusion of constitutionality is needed - you can pick either side. Please use the following to help guide your answer:

1. If you think the law is unconstitutional, you may want to follow the majority's opinion in the Brown v. Entertainment Merchant Ass'n's case, and the US v. Stevens case that the majority cites in its opinion (see page 3 of the Brown case).

2. If you think the law should be upheld as being constitutional, then you may want to follow one of the dissents' opinions - and review the types of unprotected speech. Could this website and its content be included in one of those categories of unprotected speech?

3. You are not required to use the IRAC system with this essay question. Also, note that you are not expected to provide a long dissertation on the law of the First Amendment. You are not expected to be an expert on the First Amendment. Rather, use the reasoning in the Brown case (from the Majority or Dissenting opinion) and apply it to the facts of this case and (in your own words) explain your reasoning. Its ok to be guided by your personal opinion on the matters/issues, just support it with reasoning from the Brown case or your textbook.

4. You can add or assume facts to help support your opinion but you cannot delete facts set forth in the fact pattern.

5. Finally, if you use language or quotes from the Brown case (including cases cited therein), you do not need to provide a cite in your answer.