{"id":4983,"date":"2023-10-31T13:47:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connectwithfund.com\/politics\/supreme-court-considers-when-the-government-can-block-followers-on-social-media\/"},"modified":"2023-10-31T13:47:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:47:16","slug":"supreme-court-considers-when-the-government-can-block-followers-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connectwithfund.com\/?p=4983","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court considers when the government can block followers on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n The Supreme Court dodged a major dispute two years ago\u00a0on the intersection between government officials, social media users and the First Amendment\u00a0when it dismissed a case concerning then-President Donald Trump\u2019s habit of blocking individuals from Twitter who had expressed their displeasure with him.\n <\/p>\n

\n The justices ultimately opted out of that dispute because Trump had left office and there was no longer a live case or controversy to decide.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Tuesday, however, the\u00a0justices are being forced to take the issue head-on.\n <\/p>\n

\n At issue before the court is when a government official\u2019s use of social media amounts to a state action that would trigger First Amendment concerns and limit an official\u2019s ability to discriminate on the basis of a commenter\u2019s viewpoint.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump is not a party to the cases at hand, but the justices\u2019 ultimate opinion will shape how public officials \u2013 from the local level all the way to the White House \u2013 use their accounts to communicate with constituents and potential voters.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s the first of several important cases on social media at the court.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the coming weeks, justices will hear a dispute about\u00a0two state laws that could have nationwide repercussions for how social media companies display user generated content. The court will also consider lower court rulings that severely limit the ability of the White House and others in the Biden administration to communicate with social media companies about content related to Covid and elections the government views as misinformation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Tuesday\u2019s cases concern two separate disputes targeting the same legal issue, but they feature different facts. In deciding to hear the two cases, the justices\u00a0may\u00a0eventually set up a test\u00a0to determine whether an account is personal and not subject to the First Amendment.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf a public official uses a social media account as an official forum, whether for engaging with constituents, transacting business, or for other uses related to the office, then they\u2019re a state actor, to whom the First Amendment applies, just as if they were standing at a door deciding who should be allowed into a public meeting relating to their duties,\u201d said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut just as government officials go home at the end of the day, their social media can also be personal \u2013- to which the Constitution does not and should not apply,\u201d Vladeck added. \u201cThe trick in these cases is drawing the line between what\u2019s official and what\u2019s personal, especially for officials who use the same accounts for both.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In one case, James Freed, a city manager in Port Huron, Michigan,\u00a0had a Facebook account that was originally private and limited to his personal friends. But the account became so popular that Freed converted it to a public page that anyone could follow. He listed his profile as \u201cpublic figure\u201d and described himself as: \u201cDaddy to Lucy, Husband to Jessie and City, Manager, Chief Administrative Officer for the citizens of Port Huron.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The account contained personal details about his life \u2013 such as photos of his daughter\u2019s birthday \u2013 but also his work in Port Huron. During\u00a0the Covid pandemic, for example, he shared Port Huron\u2019s policies on public health measures.\n <\/p>\n

\n An individual named Kevin Lindke objected to the Covid policies and posted his criticism. Freed eventually blocked him and Lindke responded by filing suit under federal law that allows a person to file suit against a state actor\u00a0when the individual believes his federal rights have been violated.\n <\/p>\n

\n Lawyers for Freed argue that even though their client was a governmental official, his posts did not constitute state action subject to\u00a0First Amendment\u00a0concerns because the social media page was not part of his official duties. A federal appeals court agreed. It held that Freed\u2019s page \u201cneither derives from the duties of his office nor depends on his state authority\u201d and that he did not \u201cfulfill any actual apparent duty of his office.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIn short,\u201d the panel of judges on the 6th\u00a0US\u00a0Circuit Court of Appeals held, \u201cFreed operated his Facebook page in his personal capacity, not his official capacity.\u201d\u00a0The court said that if Port Huron\u2019s list of city-manager\u2019s responsibilities mentioned operating a Facebook page to tell residents about city initiatives it might be a \u201cdifferent story.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Another dispute concerns two members of California\u2019s Poway Unified School District Board of Trustees, Michelle O\u2019Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane. They created public Facebook and Twitter pages to inform constituents of what was happening in the\u00a0district.\n <\/p>\n

\n But two parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, began commenting on the social media pages with long criticisms of the district.\u00a0O\u2019Connor-Ratcliff and Zane blocked them, and the Garniers filed suit seeking damages and arguing that the officials\u2019 postings amounted to government action.\n <\/p>\n

\n The public officials lost at the federal appeals court level.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe conclude that, given the close nexus between the Trustees\u2019 use of their social media pages and their official positions, the Trustees in this case were acting under color of state law when they blocked the Garniers,\u201d a panel of judges on the 9th\u00a0US\u00a0Circuit Court of Appeals held.\n <\/p>\n

\n The court made clear that although the social media accounts were not required by the trustees\u2019 positions, the accounts were \u201cdirectly connected\u201d to their jobs.\u00a0While\u00a0not every social media account created by a public official is subject to constitutional scrutiny,\u00a0the court added,\u00a0\u201cwhen state actors enter the virtual world and invoke their government status to create a forum\u201d for expression, \u201cthe First Amendment enters with them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court dodged a major dispute two years ago\u00a0on the intersection between government officials, social media users and the First Amendment\u00a0when it dismissed a case concerning then-President Donald Trump\u2019s habit of blocking individuals from Twitter who had expressed their displeasure with him. The justices ultimately opted out of that dispute because Trump had left office and there was no longer a live case or controversy to decide. On Tuesday, however, the\u00a0justices are being forced to take the issue head-on. At issue before the court is when a government official\u2019s use of social media amounts to a state action that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court considers when the government can block followers on social media | ConnectWithFund<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Supreme Court dodged a major dispute two years ago\u00a0on the intersection between government officials, social media users and the First Amendment\u00a0when\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/connectwithfund.com\/?p=4983\" \/>\n<meta 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