March 15 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed down a new legal test spelling out when public officials may or may not block members of the public on social media accounts.
The unanimous ruling penned by Justice Amy Coney Barrett found officials can only be held liable for blocking the accounts of constituents if those same officials were granted authority to speak on behalf of the government that employs them
A two-pronged legal test must now be applied to determine if that is the case and if an employee or elected official “purported to exercise that authority in the relevant posts.”
That official or employee must also have “actual authority to speak on behalf of the State on a particular matter.”
The Supreme Court in October heard oral arguments from two different cases, one involving school board representatives from Southern California and another with a city manager in Michigan. Both stemmed from the officials blocking Facebook accounts of critical citizens.
On Friday, the Supreme Court sent both cases back to their respective lower courts to apply the new legal test.
“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 in the decision.
The Michigan case involved the city manager in Huron, Mich. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit originally sided with James Freed after he deleted Facebook critical comments made by one resident and blocked several others. The posts related to the city’s handling of the COVID-19 epidemic.
In Southern California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled against two school board members for blocking Facebook and X accounts belonging to their constituents. The court ruled doing so violated First Amendment rights.
