local government officials are actually involved in state action when they curate their social media profiles this way,” Danforth-Scott said. The court “granted review on a preliminary question of whether. They have to clarify what counts as “state action” by, for example, determining how many dog, baby and food pictures you’d have to post to prove that a Facebook page was a personal, rather than official account. However, before the Supreme Court can say whether blocking constituents violates the First Amendment, the justices need to rule on a more preliminary question, said Evelyn Danforth-Scott, a staff attorney for the ACLU, during a Sept. This year’s cases present an opportunity for the justices to address the issues that were left unresolved. But since he used the account as a government official, he was subject to the First Amendment,” according to The New York Times.īecause Trump left office before the Supreme Court could hear the former president’s appeal, the justices declared the case to be moot. Trump could have blocked whomever he wanted. “Had the account been private, the court said, Mr. In 2019, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s Twitter account was a public forum and that, therefore, constituents’ access could not be cut off. That’s the same question that was at the center of an earlier battle over then-President Donald Trump’s Twitter account. The overarching question in each case is whether an elected official violates the First Amendment when he or she blocks constituents on social media. Can government officials block constituents online? I would never have posted what I ate for dinner, you know?” Freed recently told USA Today.įreed was sued by one of his constituents, Kevin Lindke, after Freed blocked Lindke on Facebook for making “weird” and critical comments, USA Today reported.įreed won at the circuit court level, but O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane lost. “If I thought that this was a public page, not private, I would never have posted photos of my kids. Like O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane, he sometimes uses it to share official updates, but he more often posts about his family life, including his dog. Freed, centers on a Facebook account belonging to James Freed, the city manager of Port Huron, Michigan. The Garniers regularly put “lengthy and repetitive critical comments” on these posts, and so O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane blocked them, which led to the lawsuit, according to The New York Times. Zane during their school board election campaigns and feature a variety of posts about school board activities. The accounts were created by Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Garnier, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier are seeking to regain access to Facebook and Twitter accounts belonging to two members of the Poway Unified School District school board in San Diego. Former Vice President Mike Pence cites Bible verse to explain decision to suspend campaign.
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