The US Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits government officials from blocking critics on social media. Two opposing decisions of lower courts on this issue led to consideration.

The justices heard an appeal by two members of the Poway Public School Board in Southern California against a lower court ruling in favor of the parents. Officials Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliffe and TJ Zane blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier on Facebook and Twitter. The parents of the three students have posted hundreds of critical posts on issues such as race and the management of school finances. Cheta Garnier sued in federal court, alleging that their First Amendment right to free speech had been violated.

In 2021, a federal judge in California ruled in favor of the parents. Last July, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the decision and ruled that school board members had provided their social media accounts as channels of public communication.

Michigan resident Kevin Lindke’s appeal of the court’s contrary decision was also considered. He filed a lawsuit against Port Huron city official James Freed, who blocked the plaintiff on Facebook after critical posts about the local government’s response to COVID-19.

In 2021, a federal judge ruled in Fried’s favor. The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last July upheld the decision, finding that Fried was not acting in his official capacity when he blocked Lindke on Facebook.

The issue at hand is whether a public official’s social media activity can amount to government action to which the First Amendment limitation applies. The applicants in both disputes told the Supreme Court that differences in their cases should be left to a higher judge.

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Source: Reuters