Supreme Court Tosses Rulings on Public Officials' Social Media Blockings (thehill.com) 58
The Supreme Court clarified when public officials can block critical constituents from their personal profiles without violating their constitutional protections in a unanimous decision Friday. From a report: After hearing appeals of two conflicting rulings -- one filed against school board members in Southern California and another filed against the city manager of Port Huron, Mich. -- the justices provided no definitive resolution to the disputes and instead sent both cases back to lower courts to apply the new legal test. In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court said state officials cannot block constituents on their personal pages when they have "actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter" and "purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts."
"For social-media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority -- he must also purport to use it," Barrett wrote. The case marked the latest battle over public officials' social media presence when they mesh their official and personal roles. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the Michigan case, sided with the city manager, James Freed, who deleted comments on his Facebook page left by a resident and blocked several of the resident's profiles. The resident, Kevin Lindke, had criticized Freed over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, court filings indicate.
"For social-media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority -- he must also purport to use it," Barrett wrote. The case marked the latest battle over public officials' social media presence when they mesh their official and personal roles. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the Michigan case, sided with the city manager, James Freed, who deleted comments on his Facebook page left by a resident and blocked several of the resident's profiles. The resident, Kevin Lindke, had criticized Freed over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, court filings indicate.
Time sensitive (Score:1)
I wonder if there has been any ruling on the time sensitivity of public forums. If I am rate limited on twitter, and I cannot see an important message from a government official about a kidnapping / weather event / etc, is that twitter interfering with public communication?
I'm guessing not, due to other sources potentially being relevant, but it is something that might go to a court if someone used a rate limited service as their primary use of communication.
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This just prevents government actors from blocking possible criticism.
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I wonder if there has been any ruling on the time sensitivity of public forums. If I am rate limited on twitter, and I cannot see an important message from a government official about a kidnapping / weather event / etc, is that twitter interfering with public communication?
I'm guessing not, due to other sources potentially being relevant, but it is something that might go to a court if someone used a rate limited service as their primary use of communication.
I don't see how.
This case is about the US First Amendment. Freedom of speech means the government can't silence you for having a different viewpoint, when a government official using their social media to communicate official speech then people will follow that account to be informed on what the government is doing and the public will see other people's comments. That means the government official can't start blocking people with dissenting opinions from their profile (though they can block classic abuse, i
Re:Time sensitive (Score:5, Informative)
The simple version as I see it is that if Social Media account is used for PERSONAL things only, they can block people, if they use it to communicate within the scope of their job as a public servant then they can't.
Most people can't help themselves and comingle their public life and their private life.
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The simple version as I see it is that if Social Media account is used for PERSONAL things only, they can block people, if they use it to communicate within the scope of their job as a public servant then they can't.
Most people can't help themselves and comingle their public life and their private life.
I'd agree with that (I think that's how I described it).
Though I'm think the motivation to use your social media is greater than you think. If you're a President then you make an official account and everyone follows that. But if you're a city manager the reach of your personal account is going to dwarf your official account (because who follows the city manager?!?). So if you care about your job and actually want to inform the public about something you talk about it using your personal account, and boom,
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This seems backwards. Who would ever look at the private Facebook account of the mayor to get info rather than the official Facebook count of the office of the mayor? For many offices, the residents won't even know the name of the office holders (ie, city council members, county commissioners and clerks, etc).
When running for office, I see most candidates do social media through their campaigns, not from a personal account (barring those no-chance-to-win people who don't have an actual campaign team). Fo
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The ruling leaves open a question though: is a social media channel used solely for disseminating official information a suitable place for public discussions? Ie, should the Fire Department's page turn into a political argument forum? Should the health department that is trying to push out health information be subject to denial of service because their account is swamped by anti-vax kooks?
The ruling was quite clear: The criterion is the purported use for official communication. If some officer publishes statements on his private account purporting to speak for the office, then this is a public statement, and everyone in the public has a right to hear it.
Thus private accounts of non elected officials, who never used their private media accounts for public work, are protected, and the owner of the accounts can block people arbitrarily, as this is an exercise of Free Speech.
Your question is
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>The ruling leaves open a question though: is a social media channel used solely for disseminating official information a suitable place for public discussions?
Lets see, is it in public? Hmmmmm. "Public. Social. Media". Ahhh, the answer is yes. Yes it IS a place for public discussion since you know, it's in PUBLIC. There's this other thing called PRIVATE if they want to go into a circle jerk with samethinkers.
>Ie, should the Fire Department's page turn into a political argument forum?
No, because the f
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communicate within the scope of their job as a public servant
So where does this scope begin/end? Is a campaign message they want to send out to their base of supporters within the scope of their job? You could argue that it is since they would be talking about issues/topics related to their official job. If so, does it apply to their competitors also? Or do they get a strategic advantage of being able to block any opposing voice?
Re:Time sensitive (Score:4, Informative)
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Right? I feel like that's the obvious solution to that and really every state should have that rule for it's public officials, you can't intermingle your personal and work accounts. Especially when Twitter still does a specific verified badge for government accounts so it's good to keep that truly for public use.
Really if I was a politician I wouldn't even want to have a personal, active social media account. Feels like that is nothing but potential trouble for politicians lol
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I do not need to see the City Engineer in hot pants
Some people pay extra for that in Vegas . . . allegedly.
Re:Time sensitive (Score:5, Insightful)
The clarification made by SCOTUS is if the social media is personal then the public official can regulate their personal accounts. Whether the account is truly personal or being used in an official capacity, SCOTUS left that to the lower courts to decide as matter of facts which is the role of lower courts. The ruling underscores the importance of creating official public social media accounts when individuals take public office.
This Supreme Court "clarification" doesn't help very much.
The big problem with this ruling is that use of the "bully pulpit" is a grey area use of an official capacity. That is, an official may be speaking "in an unofficial capacity" (wink-wink), but no one would pay any attention to them if they weren't that publicly known to be in office, and what they're saying is very much intended to influence public opinion in a way that supports their official capacity goals.
The only useful way to distinguish official from non-official actions must be based on the content of the actions and not on the media. Distinguishing based on the media is useless because it's far too simple to create a "non-official" account that conveys exactly what the official account would have communicated.
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The big problem with this ruling is that use of the "bully pulpit" is a grey area use of an official capacity. That is, an official may be speaking "in an unofficial capacity" (wink-wink), but no one would pay any attention to them if they weren't that publicly known to be in office, and what they're saying is very much intended to influence public opinion in a way that supports their official capacity goals.
That is why SCOTUS left that question for lower courts on an individual basis.
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If the rate limiting is done by Twitter, then the 1st Amendment doesn't apply whether t's viewpoint neutral or not.
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This case is about the US First Amendment. Freedom of speech means the government can't silence you for having a different viewpoint, when a government official using their social media to communicate official speech then people will follow that account to be informed on what the government is doing and the public will see other people's comments.
How is this different from a broadcasted press release where a government official chooses which reporters to call on, can cut them off, or not invite them at all, revoke press passes, etc? Or any government function where members of the public must register before even speaking, and in general not speak whatever they want whenever they want to in the exact same forum the government is using?
This all seems like a bizarre new standard where everyone is allowed to yell over each other and scribble on the wall
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This case is about the US First Amendment. Freedom of speech means the government can't silence you for having a different viewpoint, when a government official using their social media to communicate official speech then people will follow that account to be informed on what the government is doing and the public will see other people's comments.
How is this different from a broadcasted press release where a government official chooses which reporters to call on, can cut them off, or not invite them at all, revoke press passes, etc? Or any government function where members of the public must register before even speaking, and in general not speak whatever they want whenever they want to in the exact same forum the government is using?
For the press conferences the government doesn't control membership [wikipedia.org]. I don't know the rules for asking questions, but even if I ignored your question you still got to ask it.
As for the other rules they're fine if done in a viewpoint neutral manner.
This all seems like a bizarre new standard where everyone is allowed to yell over each other and scribble on the walls, because if I can't write my opinion on THAT wall, or yell what I want right HERE you're silencing me. The other reporter can, why can't they all, why can't I, in the same place?
Making the forum entirely non-interactive is the only answer (or is that not allowed?) and that is somehow also an acceptable outcome.
I'm not sure this was thought all the way through, but the Supreme Court flubbing something involving technology is not surprising.
You can still make rules about being respectful, limits of comments, etc, as long as they're viewpoint neutral.
The controversy was because the blocks weren't based on viewpoint neutral rules, they blocked the posters for criticizing them.
Re: Time sensitive (Score:1)
The rate limiting and other censorship measures as weâ(TM)re seeing brought up in the other SCOTUS cases was heavily leaned upon by the government. So this case basically says that if you use your Twitter account for government purposes, you canâ(TM)t lean on Twitter to block dissent in your stead. Because whatâ(TM)s the difference between clicking a button to block someone or having a meeting with the Twitter bosses to block someone on your behalf?
Problem with Government not Twitter (Score:3)
If I am rate limited on twitter, and I cannot see an important message from a government official about a kidnapping / weather event / etc,
If your government is relying on a social media app primarily intended for pointless gossip as the primary means of communicating critical safety information your problem is not with Twitter but with your government making stupid decisions.
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Twitter (Xusk) is not just a gossip site. Where I see it appear the most is in dissemination of information (be that info gossip from a celebrity, or important news about road closures or emergency instructions). Facebook and Instagram is more social, but when there's an earthquake or tornado then it's Twitter where people go for up to date information. The official department web page is often the last place to check for recent information.
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Re: Time sensitive (Score:1)
The argument in the past was to just not use twitter or any platform you don't feel is treating you fairly. But, places of employment require some form of public social media access or your simply have no future there. Therefore logically that argument reaches now it current resolution. Public(government) officials must be able to act for the good of the public integrity when social media platforms are concerned. Public interests and corporate interests are not the same and there is no such entity as a corp
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So, the moral of the story (Score:3)
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There are still harassment laws, but a politician would have to work to get rid of a pest.
"Keep your work and private lives separate" is pretty basic. If you blend them for your benefit, then everyone else is justified in blending them for theirs.
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Nailed it.
My friends who are politicians have separate accounts for government business.
Makes sense to me (Score:3)
I don't post ads for the company I work for on my personal social media accounts. I don't post pictures of my kid's sports on my business social media accounts. That's why I have two different social media accounts.
For me, it's arbitrary and doesn't really matter, but if you work for the government there are a bunch of extra rules that come into play that make it even more worthwhile to have two accounts.
I've heard of government officials discussing work on Twitter, which then makes their social media accou
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Part of the problem is that often these get mixed up by government officials or appointees who don't have lots of computer experience. It's obvious to us how to use a social media account, but when many high level officials went and set up personal email servers, or would send messages using blackberries or phones, against the rules of the GAO, then this is because they see it as a bunch of handwavy rules by nerdy techs rather than important rules. Just consider your average CEO who can't keep business se
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Different Moral (Score:2)
The moral of the story then is...
Really? The moral I took away is that Twitter, Facebook etc. should not be used for any form of official communication. If you cannot block someone do you really want some important official post e.g. telling people to evacuate an area due to flooding/wildfire etc. to have a comment from some random idiot underneath it telling everyone don't worry it's safe and directly undermining your information?
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How is this different than someone telling people to ignore what the CDC says and go buy horse paste to cure covid and being blocked? People will say you're violating their First Amendment right to free speech even though
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How is this different than someone telling people to ignore what the CDC says and go buy horse paste to cure covid and being blocked?
It's different because they are saying it in exactly the same place as the official announcement and directly next to the official announcement. This is not at all the same as having an official announcement on an official government site and then some random idiot saying something else on a very clearly unofficial social media platform. People judge the validity of information based on where they hear it from and if they hear both from the same place it becomes harder to determine which one to trust.
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Ridiculous (Score:1)
This should be totally illegal, official websites can and should be used.
In other words, anything on 'social' media is a personal post.
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I am in 100% agreement; everything should be posted publicly in a neutral forum and responsibly archived as a historical record. The same should be true of utilities and similar organizations.
Unfortunately that is almost impossible to do for most cities, counties, states, and the federal government. Even if it was possible, it still creates dozens of sites that someone must visit. So organizations get lazy and just use what people already use for their personal stuff.
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The federal government keeps it all strait, expecting 50 states to do the same is easy leap. Cities also, sort of easy under the light threat of the courts. Now Joe Bob in Dunksville MI, is going to need to be under threat of constant lawsuit, to keep a ADA compliant site up to date with city counsel meeting minutes and the
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What if there's an emergency? Extreme flooding, roads are closed, bridges washed out, no way to get to your computer. What you have is a phone, with spotty service and low bandwidth. Do you try to browse to official sites on the infamously bad phone browsers or go to Twitter? If you go to the government page it might not be updated for hours, day, or months. Updating the official web page may be complicated for officials, the underlings may be unable to get to the office to do this, but logging into the
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State Police and StateDOT are apolitical and publish that sort of info via twitter and typically do not suffer from shit posting because they are all signal and no noise 24/7/365. Perhaps a few officer friendly messages during love your local cop month.
Check out CA state water storage information, that data survives decades in the same format as original
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The likes of Google and Bing are already crawling all important sites so finding info is no big problem.
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It may be moot, given that there appears to be only one user.
Great to see a unanimous ruling (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a lot of criticism of judges for being partisan. That in this case the whole court lined up behind a clear new rule is thus great to see; sometimes the judges aren't acting in a one sided way.
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If I'm a public official and I'm using a social media channel to address issues related to my office, then it's a free-speech free-game zone baby, and I can't pick and choose who I mute just cause they hurt my widdle feewings.
If I'm an elected official and I have a
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First Amendment (Score:2)
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.
The last part, the right to petition the Government for redress of grievances, is what this is about. You have a right to complain to government officials, though of course they don't have to care. Blocking someone on a social media account that is used for official government messaging is blocking such "petitions".
so how does that work if (Score:2)