The US Supreme Court on Monday declared as unconstitutional a 2008 North Carolina law barring registered sex offenders from accessing commercial social media sites where minors may become members or create personal pages or profiles.

The justices ruled that the law, used to prosecute more than 1,000 registered sex offenders, was a breach of the First Amendment because “cyberspace” amounted to the “modern public square.” The court said the North Carolina law, which bars sex offenders from sites like Facebook and Twitter, “enacts a prohibition unprecedented in the scope of First Amendment speech it burdens.”