WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 19: Supreme Court of the United States, on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. Supreme Court is expected to rule weather or not allow restrictions on mifepristone drug ordered by lower court to take effect as abortion opponents are seeking to withdraw FDA approval of mifepristone, used in the most common abortion method in the United States. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | beautiful pictures
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether people can sue state officials who block them on social media – a legal question that remains unresolved in the a previous case involving former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
The court heard two separate cases involving figures of much lower profile — two members of the Board of Trustees for the Poway Unified School District in southern California and the city superintendent of Port Huron, Michigan. But the legal dispute is the same: Could blocking someone on social media lead to a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment freedom of speech?
It’s a question repeated at all levels of government as elected officials increasingly use social media to interact with voters. The Supreme Court’s decision will have broad implications in guiding how lower courts should handle such cases.
In the California case, board members Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and TJ Zane in 2017 blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, parents of students in the district, from commenting on their Facebook pages and in the school. O’Connor-Ratcliff, responded to her Twitter posts. Zane has since left office.
Garniers’ frequent comments are not obscene or violent but are repetitive and lengthy, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals found in a 2022 ruling in favor of Garniers. couple, this ruling upheld a similar ruling by a federal judge in the Southern District of California.
The appeals court concluded that the elected officials were acting in their official capacity and that the social media accounts resembled a public forum. The court also rejected the officials’ argument that their social media sites were not an official channel for citizens to communicate with the government.
The Michigan case arose in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. City Manager James Freed posted information on his Facebook page, which describes him as a “person of the public,” about the efforts the city is taking to respond to the public health crisis. .
One resident, Kevin Lindke, posted comments critical of the city’s response, prompting Freed to block him.
Freed said the Facebook page that is no longer active is a personal page. He used it to share pictures of his family and comment on his daily activities, he added.
In a ruling in June 2022, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding the lower court’s ruling, said Freed was not acting in his official capacity and, therefore, active on Facebook. does not constitute a “state action” that could lead to a lawsuit.
Supreme Court 2021 Thrown out a similar lawsuit against Trump because he had left office at the time and the case was being contested, meaning the legal question remained unresolved. At the time, Twitter also banned Trump’s account, although the company’s new owner, Elon Musk, refused. reverse direction. In Trump’s case, courts have ruled against the president, noting that he often uses his Twitter account to make official announcements.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote at the time the case highlighted that “applying old doctrines to new digital platforms is rarely simple.” While in some ways Twitter can be seen as a public forum, in other ways it is a private space over which the company has broad powers, Thomas noted, pointing to the decision to ban Trump.
