determine the appropriate level of scrutiny for the statute. ¶ 38 2. Degree of Scrutiny ¶ 39 The United States Supreme Court has long held “[c]ontent-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people. To guard against that threat the Constitution demands that content-based restrictions on speech be presumed invalid.” Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656, 660 (2004); see R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 382 (stating that content-based regulations are presumptively invalid); City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc., 475 U.S. 41, 46-47 (1986) (same). Generally, “laws that by their terms distinguish favored speech from disfavored speech on the basis of the ideas or views expressed are content based.” Turner Broadcasting System, 512 U.S. at 643. ¶ 40 Accordingly, courts “apply the most exacting scrutiny to regulations that suppress, disadvantage, or impose differential burdens upon speech because of its content.” Id. at 642. A content-based law is justified only if it survives strict scrutiny, which requires the government to demonstrate that the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. ___, ___, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 2226 (2015). “The State must specifically identify an ‘actual problem’ in need of solving [citation], and the curtailment of free speech must be actually necessary to the solution [citation].” Brown, 564 U.S. at 799. In other words, if a less restrictive alternative would serve a governmental purpose, a legislature must use that alternative. United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000). ¶ 41 In the case at bar, the circuit court found that section 11-23.5(b) “is a contentbased speech restriction because it doesn’t target all pictures, videos, depictions, and portrayals, but only those showing nudity or sexual activity.” In both the circuit court and before this court, the parties premised their arguments on the assumption that section 11-23.5(b) must survive strict scrutiny to be found constitutional. ¶ 42 However, because this is a first amendment case, we, as a court of review, must decide independently “whether a given course of conduct falls on the near or far side of the line of constitutional protection.” Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian - 12 -