Supreme Court To Decide if Public Officials Can Block Critics on Social Media (reuters.com) 81
The U.S. Supreme Court, exploring free speech rights in the social media era, on Monday agreed to consider whether the Constitution's First Amendment bars government officials from blocking their critics on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. From a report: The justices took up an appeal by two members of a public school board from the city of Poway in Southern California of a lower court's ruling in favor of school parents who sued after being blocked from Facebook pages and a Twitter account maintained by the officials. The justices also took up an appeal by a Michigan man of a lower court's ruling against him after he sued a city official in Port Huron who blocked him on Facebook following critical posts made by the plaintiff about the local government's COVID-19 response. At issue is whether a public official's social media activity can amount to governmental action bound by First Amendment limits on government regulation of speech.
Official account or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think it would depend entirely on whether the public figure was using an account in an official capacity (or it represented a government body) or if it was personal. Say, @MitchMcConnell on Twitter might be his personal account, but @SenMitchMcConnell would seem official, with the latter not being allowed to abridge free speech. I would think such restrictions would apply to pages/accounts run on behalf of a school board or Governor's office or the such.
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I think it's @TurtleMan
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Does making fun of his appearance, help point out flaws in his arguments? Or is really a dissenting opinion?
Would such insults be appropriate communication on the connected official statements?
Now I find Mitch McConnell to be an untrustworthy source, especially around delaying Obama Appointment of a Supreme Court Justice, Then Rushing a a Supreme Court Justice under Trump, and just using the opposite arguments, even with less time for a possible change of administration than prior. But pointing out how you
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I think you are confusing someone arguing someone else opinion, with trying to block there own. The parent is free to make fun of how McConnell looks to him. However I am free to point out, just because you don't like the way he looks, it doesn't discredit the value of his public statements.
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Does making fun of his appearance, help point out flaws in his arguments?
No, but it was funny.
Re:Official account or not? (Score:4, Insightful)
If politicians don't want feedback, maybe they should use OFFICIAL websites to communicate. The people that care enough to follow them will check the OFFICIAL webpage. Heck, the media would likely just report whatever the government website posted as news.
Twitter shouldn't be used by government officials to communicate anything that has to do with official business. If they want to run there mouth as an individual, that's entirely different (though if you are an elected official, it seems beneath your station to say the least).
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I don't disagree, the problem is getting people to use the official sources. They would much rather go to news sources, which may take their statement out of context.
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I would think it would depend entirely on whether the public figure was using an account in an official capacity (or it represented a government body) or if it was personal. Say, @MitchMcConnell on Twitter might be his personal account, but @SenMitchMcConnell would seem official, with the latter not being allowed to abridge free speech. I would think such restrictions would apply to pages/accounts run on behalf of a school board or Governor's office or the such.
With Facebook I think it's typically one in the same.
I think the issue with things like a FB account is officials, particularly local ones, will use it both for friends & family and for political purposes since their personal social network is their biggest political asset.
For organizational accounts on Facebook I think the 1st amendment makes stronger arguments against blocking... but again, admins need to be able to stop spam and abuse.
Even on Twitter it's weird. I certainly think an officiant should
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If Twitter added something like an ignore feature that would let some still see and respond to your tweets without you having to see what they've said it would solve the problem. It prevents representatives from being able to silence criticism, but doesn't require them to have to see an endless deluge of messages from some user they don't care about.
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The easier fix is to avoid social media altogether. There's really no difference between public and private for elected officials.
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The easier fix is to avoid social media altogether. There's really no difference between public and private for elected officials.
Why you got a "-1" I don't know. Your comment makes real sense...which is why it's at "-1" on /.
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Because we're talking about a form of communications used by a person whose profession depends almost exclusively on public relations.
Avoiding social media is a way of saying "change your career". It's -1 for a good reason, being an unhelpful troll post.
already addressed in the constitution, dudes (Score:1)
Re: already addressed in the constitution, dudes (Score:1)
The issue isn't the response to the politician, it's that your criticism is forwarded to everyone that follows the politician. What gives the critic the right to be published in the timeline of everyone following the politician. If the criticism were sent to the politician alone, not forwarded to all followers, I'd say you're right.
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If Twitter added something like an ignore feature that would let some still see and respond to your tweets without you having to see what they've said it would solve the problem. It prevents representatives from being able to silence criticism, but doesn't require them to have to see an endless deluge of messages from some user they don't care about.
Won't there still be the potential problem that a public forum loses its ability to be a public forum if nuisance-makers keep spamming it? I guess, though, that has to be solved by someone without a vested interest -- specifically NOT by the person being criticized.
Re: Official account or not? (Score:2)
What if politicians (or anyone) had the choice to set their account as "rubber" or "glue"?
"Rubber" means every response is included in all follower's timelines.
"Glue" means the response is only seen by the politician, not to all their followers.
That would go a long way towards resolving this issue.
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The easy fix is not to conflate personal and work accounts. There's also no obligation for anyone to pay attention to whatever messages someone sends them.
If Twitter added something like an ignore feature that would let some still see and respond to your tweets without you having to see what they've said it would solve the problem. It prevents representatives from being able to silence criticism, but doesn't require them to have to see an endless deluge of messages from some user they don't care about.
I have an old teacher who serves on the Council for a small city. His FB feed consists maybe 20% personal stuff, 60% announcements about city events, initiatives, and maybe 20% positive political messaging (ie, pro-diversity). The one time he did post something that mildly criticized a group of Christian extremists he later apologized in case he offended people.
I think that's a fairly appropriate use of his FB account that's beneficial to the community. I'd be uncomfortable if he blocked someone who disagre
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We want our elected officials to communicate with constituents any way that works. The goal is to keep as many constituents in touch as possible, which means using every means of communication that will reach a substantial number of them. If lots of people are on Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok, it makes sense for officials to reach out through those social media apps to communicate with t
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I would think it would depend entirely on whether the public figure was using an account in an official capacity
Would you think it is a First Amendment issue if the Senator's office purchased a booth at a private venue, say a sporting event to advertise some of their official messages, And then while they are there politely asked that the staff at the venue eject some protesters who gathered around the booth in attempt to debate their official message? Let's assume the property owner was not contrac
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Right. I'm not talking about Twitter or the like taking (or not taking) any action. I'm talking about the "owner" of the account. Those are two entirely different situations.
I accept that it may be difficult for the general populous to determine whether an account is official or not...therein lies the challenge for the legislation and/or Courts.
Re: Official account or not? (Score:1)
Maybe your official account could have a mark of some kind, perhaps a check mark? Who knows, maybe you could get a blue check mark -I hear blue is a very popular color.
Of course, the social media platform might require a nominal payment for such a service?
Just a thought.
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However the issue is if the Official account you cannot block, but the Private one you can, what will stop them from just using their private one to spew out stuff that they can block all criticism.
But then we also have the problem with general trolling on ones official channels. For a lot of people an Insult is better than a rational argument, and could distract official communication, which may be important, with insults and trolling and misinformation.
While I don't like the idea of Truth Police, Social M
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But where does one draw the line?
If one is involved with an agricultural bill, and they say "They don't like Broccoli" or "They refrain from GMO foods" That could be coded for an official statement, or just an unrelated comment.
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But where does one draw the line?
Wherever it causes public figures the greatest frustration.
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I would think it would depend entirely on whether the public figure was using an account in an official capacity (or it represented a government body) or if it was personal. Say, @MitchMcConnell on Twitter might be his personal account, but @SenMitchMcConnell would seem official, with the latter not being allowed to abridge free speech.
Mitch McConnell's personal views coincide with his preferred policy outcomes, and what he does to effect policy makes up a huge portion of his personal day-to-day experiences. Political leaders put a ton of "personal" material on social media that is actually their A/B tested effort to affect the electorate.
For a mailman, if he decides to cheat on his spouse and go cruising for prostitutes, you might at least say that, while reprehensible, it is not something that should impact his employment as a mailman.
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I think a far more relevant example would be @POTUS vs @realdonaldtrump. We all know Trump was talking about official policy of the government using the latter even if it was his personal handle before and the official account was @POTUS.
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They could just mute people they don't like. They don't see their posts, but other people do.
Free speech maximised.
Re: Official account or not? (Score:1)
That's the issue - the platform broadcasting every criticism to each of the account holder's followers. Why does the critic have a constitutional right to have their criticism to each of the account holder's followers?
Re: Official account or not? (Score:2)
There is no first amendment right to have your statements published, you have a right to make the statement, but not the right to have it broadcast to others.
I can walk out on the street corner and say whatever I want, but no one is required to listen to me. Why is it different online? A critic can criticize anyone online, but do they have a constitutional right to have me read their comment or have it sent to everyone associated with me?
Next Step: Dick pics!!! (Score:2)
I would think it would depend entirely on whether the public figure was using an account in an official capacity (or it represented a government body) or if it was personal. Say, @MitchMcConnell on Twitter might be his personal account, but @SenMitchMcConnell would seem official, with the latter not being allowed to abridge free speech.
Well, I for one, look forward to sending public officials pictures of my junk!!!...Free speech!!!!...with my dick! I look forward to sending blurry pictures of my not especially impressive genitalia to every person who is bound by your notion of free speech!
Re: Next Step: Dick pics!!! (Score:2)
> Well, I for one, look forward to sending public officials pictures of my junk!!!...Free speech!!!!...with my dick! I look forward to sending blurry pictures of my not especially impressive genitalia to every person who is bound by your notion of free speech!
Give it a try. Let us know how you get on?
The greatest issue (Score:3, Funny)
Why is this an issue? (Score:3)
If I block someone on e.g. Twitter, they can still talk about me. They can still get access to my tweets. The only thing they can't do is force me to see what they write from the account I blocked. How is that a free speech issue?
On the other hand, I'm in favor of them having to publish the block list to their official account, so their constituents know if they're blocked.
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you can't see their tweets
...and yet an anonymous person can? How silly.
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The only thing they can't do is force me to see what they write from the account I blocked.
No. When they block you you can't see them. You can no longer engage in their discourse. Your tweets will no longer show up in the feed of related tweets about what they said.
Whether you can still talk to your cat is not the issue. That wasn't the personal (animal) you were trying to reach.
No clear answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Any sane ruling would be "It depends" and will only clarify one possible situation. Can you block actual harassment? Probably. Is the social account providing a means of official discourse? Probably shouldn't be able to block.
Calling your senator, do they have to answer the phone or can it go to voicemail? Do they have to call you back to preserve your free speech rights? Free speech isn't a two-way conversation.
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Nailed it.
An official channel of communication should not be blocked to citizens based on the feelings of an elected official (or their social media handler), but there does need to be a way to block harassment that would render the channel useless.
Which pretty much means if they want to block someone, it should require a court order.
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Nailed it.
An official channel of communication should not be blocked to citizens based on the feelings of an elected official (or their social media handler), but there does need to be a way to block harassment that would render the channel useless.
Which pretty much means if they want to block someone, it should require a court order.
At that point, we'd need to define what harassment would entail. Is simply giving an opinion that differes from your own harassment? What about asking uncomfortable questions? How far would a user need to go to be considered harassment? I'd suggest we'd need these rules to be iron clad before they're allowed to be used for abuse in and of themselves. After all, a political opponent should absolutely be allowed to see and respond to your posts but if these rules aren't ironed out, that opponent could easil
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Can you block actual harassment?
That should not be up to you.
Calling your senator
Is not relevant here. The issue isn't you not being able to talk to them. It's you being disassociated from all things they said, it's you not being able to hear them, it's your posts being silenced in the stream of other posts associated with their account. Twitter links tweets together in its feed when it is presented to others. That link is broken when someone is blocked. Facebook is no different.
The impact of a block is the difference between you being able to talk with your
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The point of my statement is that freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom of an audience.
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That point alone means they can't block.
Show me the law. It might be unethical but it's almost certainly currently legal. And it's definitely not a 1st amendment issue, which covers speech and not hearing.
In both cases, you can sign out and view the public posts.
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I'm really not sure what the point of twitter preventing you from *viewing* tweets is.
Primarily because blocked users aren't notified when they are blocked. If something simply doesn't pop up on their feed, they won't think to continue their assault and create a new account. That said, it really only makes sense to hide it from their feed. Hiding the public tweets from direct lookup and viewing is a weird idea.
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Primarily because blocked users aren't notified when they are blocked. If something simply doesn't pop up on their feed, they won't think to continue their assault and create a new account. That said, it really only makes sense to hide it from their feed. Hiding the public tweets from direct lookup and viewing is a weird idea.
Right, that's partially why I'm confused - hiding it when you visit the URL directly is a big tip-off that you're blocked. Seems to undermine the first part there. Also from a general tech/security standpoint, giving a logged-in user less privilege than an unauthenticated connection just seems like a bizarre design choice.
If it's a public official posting as the role, no (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a forum where normally feedback is allowed, and someone posts something from the identified position as "GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL JOB", then hell no they shouldn't be able to shut off feedback.
They have /infinite/ media avenues to monologue and avoid taking any blowback for their bullshittery. Talk to reporters, talk "off the record" to reporters, leak stuff, whatever. All of which will be published somewhere or repeated on TV which is (in their context is delightfully one-way communication).
If they want to step up on the bully sandbox in a public forum because it'll reach more people or whatever, no, they shouldn't get 'special rules' for that interaction to protect their delicate sensibilities.
You take the venue, you get that context. You don't want tomatoes thrown at you? Don't stand in the public square.
But what is my opinion worth? I'm just a voter. The US government stopped bothering to even pretend to do what the majority wanted back in the 1990s.
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That way lies madness. We can end up in a situation where someone can be bodily removed or barred from a city council meeting for not yielding the floor or other bad behavior, but can't be banned from posting replies on whatever web presence a similar entity has.
I don't see how you think these are "special rules" since everyone else can use them. You seem to be, as usual, using a strawman. The question at hand is whether official accounts would have special rules different from the normal ability to blo
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Twitter might be unique-ish case. On other platforms blocking someone may mean you don't see their posts, on twitter yes they can hit your handle anonymously and at least read.
Now in the case of the council meeting, even if you are physically removed, I doubt any court would stand by you being barred from obtaining the meeting minutes afterward.
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"the normal ability to block disruptive users"
Going back how far?
I'd argue that for the majority of human civilization, when a leader said something it had to be basically in earshot of the people to whom it was relevant. Exactly what opportunity - other than sending his bully-boys to beat the shit out of the troublemaker, which I think we can both agree was a non-optimal response - did that leader have to 'block' disruption?
No, the printing press was really the first widespread way ANYONE had to tell some
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If there is a forum where normally feedback is allowed, and someone posts something from the identified position as "GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL JOB", then hell no they shouldn't be able to shut off feedback.
While thinking about being able to offer meaningful feedback to an elected official you are completely ignoring when the problem is on the other side.
Yes, public officials can have a spam filter on their email. You have a right to talk, but they aren't required to listen to everything. There are some legitimately crazy people who can turn to day and night harassing and there are limits to free speech when it amounts to harassment and abuse. People like that can completely clog up the public forum and pre
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I mostly agree; but everyone seems fixated on their being no middle road. There already is a middle road.
If someone throws a tomato at you in the public square, that is a assault, its a crime, and it should be stopped.
On the other hand if nobody can hear your speech over the hecklers well, get a bigger megaphone!
Same thing should apply with activism on Social media. If someone is harassing you, making threats against your person, family, doxxing you etc, those are crimes and it should be possible get that
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Feedback is poison (Score:2, Redundant)
Public officials should post official business from announce-only accounts that do not permit comments or feedback. People can use the normal channels to provide feedback (such as phoning, emailing or mailing the official.)
The problem is that some public officials use their official accounts to post shit-disturbing invective to rile up the base. Disallowing that would neuter 95% of the vituperative garbage that passes for political discourse nowadays.
It's been in court before. (Score:3)
The Second Circuit held it to be unconstitutional in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump, but SCOTUS overturned and remanded back to the Second with instructions to find it moot (Trump was no longer in office).
With these judges? (Score:1)
Does it go both ways? (Score:2)
The biggest issue I see is that blocks go both ways. If a public official blocks a user on FB, yes the public official will not longer see any posts from the user. But the user will also not see any posts from the public official. Assuming this is an official account, that is cutting off the user from accessing potentially important information that is conveyed via the account. IT's not juts "you can't post" but also "you can't see" which is a real problem.
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IT's not juts "you can't post" but also "you can't see" which is a real problem
You're right that it's a problem, but there is zero first amendment issue if you choose not to speak to someone. There is at least a potential issue if they can't talk to you.
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" that is cutting off the user from accessing potentially important information that is conveyed via the account. "
You mean the same information that those officials send out via email lists? Much of that information turns out to be links to other web pages (generally within the rep's office/government body) anyway.
It cuts off one way of getting "potentially important information" -- it doesn't cut off the only source of that info.
Moral of the story... and I say this as someone who's been on more than a fe
Headline sounds bad (Score:2)
The headline makes it sound like we're talking about de-platforming critics, but that's not what they mean. They're talking about something more along the lines of clicking "block" for a user on Twitter. The people you block can still post, it's just that you won't see them in 3rd party threads unless you temporarily un-block, and they can't reply to you.
Off hand, I'd say anybody can block whoever they want since those are the rules of the forum. OTOH, there's an argument to be made that being able to re
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OTOH, there's an argument to be made that being able to reply to your representative's social media posts is a function of government so I'd say no to letting them block with an important caveat as follows
On the other hand, the First Amendment specifically protects "the right ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". Seems to me that blocking someone on social media would be infringing upon that right.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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But surely a FB account is not the only, or even a good, way to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances".
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Does petitioning the government mean you have to meet with *all* the lobbyists? I'm not trolling or being facetious, it's more of a rhetorical question.
Forget about the Internet. If you go way back in time, and a person or group continuously sent letters and the official refused to read them and publicly stated they had no interest in meeting with those people or groups, were their rights violated?
I'm leaning towards no. They were allowed to make the effort, that they had made the effort and been rejecte
If politicians can't block, how can the platforms? (Score:2)
According to Slashdot -
I am trolling DT and he blocks me replying = abridgment of my fundamental rights to participate in public discourse
I am trolling DT and Twitter bans my account = company's right to free speech, would be wrong to compel them to host anything they disagree with, now I can't participate in any political discussion on twitter but that's fine I should just go build my own network
I don't think you can have it both ways. If my ability to read and direct comments at politicians on these plat
Which kind of "block" are we talking about? (Score:1)
A) blocking a user prevents them from posting further content on the platform
B) blocking a user prevents them from using reply-like features to attach their content to yours
C) blocking a user prevents their content from being shown to you, when you are logged in.
It's obvious to me that anyone should be allowed to do C, and also that politicans, specifically, should definit
Already resolved twice over, but needs codifying (Score:4, Informative)
Trump did the same thing back when he was President. The lower court found that it was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, and then the appeals court upheld the decision. It was set to go to the Supreme Court, but they dismissed the case because the topic became moot in the meantime (Trump was banned from Twitter and had lost the re-election).
Original ruling: https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/... [cnn.com]
Upheld at appeal: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/09... [cnn.com]
Supreme Court dismissed as moot: https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
Dismissing it was the right decision at the time, but it seems as if they want to swing back around to codify the previous precedent that they weren't actually able to set.
The government shouldn't be able to... (Score:1)
Seek EVIDENCE (Score:2)
Public Officials should seek EVIDENCE