The Supreme Court of the United States reached a unanimous decision on Friday, acknowledging that government officials are allowed to block a constituent from their social media pages under certain circumstances, as long as they do not claim to represent the state in their actions.
The case in question, Lindke v. Freed, emerged from an incident where Kevin Lindke, a resident of Port Huron, Michigan, was blocked from the Facebook page of city manager James Freed after Lindke criticized the city’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing the court’s opinion, stated, “While officials may look like they are ‘always on the clock,’ not every encounter is ‘part of the job.’”
“The state-action doctrine requires Lindke to show that Freed (1) had actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter, and (2) purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts,” the court held.
“Lindke cannot hang his hat on Freed’s status as a state employee. The distinction between private conduct and state action turns on substance, not labels: Private parties can act with the authority of the State, and state officials have private lives and their own constitutional rights. Categorizing conduct, therefore, can require a close look.”
In a related case, Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff, involving two California school board members who blocked parents on social media, the Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that the school board members were acting “under color of state law” and returned the case for further proceedings in line with their opinion.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court is set to review two significant free speech cases on Monday. The first, Murthy v. Missouri, challenges the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate speech on social media platforms. The second, NRA v. Vullo, involves the National Rifle Association’s lawsuit against a former New York official who allegedly pressured banks and insurers to avoid doing business with the organization.
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Author: Nicholas Dolinger
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