The court laid down guidelines for the lower courts to use in assessing the facts in similar cases.
The Supreme Court issued a pair of unanimous decisions Friday on a subject that has roiled the waters at all levels of government. The question: When do public officials—elected or unelected—violate the First Amendment by blocking critics from their personal social media pages., outraged citizens sued public officials who did that. In one case, two elected local school board members in Poway, Calif., blocked persistently critical parents from their social media pages. And in Port Huron, Mich.
City manager Freed replied that was simply not true, that he did answer constituent questions, and point them to press releases and other sites for local information. But"80% of the posts are my personal family photos, pictures of my dog," and the like, he said. "Had I thought for a moment that this page was public and that I didn't control it, I would never have posted photos of my little girls or my wife.
Writing for the court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that"a post that expressly invokes state authority to make an announcement not available elsewhere is official," and members of the public are entitled to make comments in response. But"a post that merely repeats or shares otherwise available information is more likely personal," and the owner of the page may well be able to block critical or unwelcome comments.
But Katie Fallow, senior counsel for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, is less optimistic.
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