The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that public officials blocking users on social media only violates the First Amendment when the officials claim to be posting on the government’s behalf.
“When a government official posts about job-related topics on social media, it can be difficult to tell whether the speech is official or private,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the opinion for Lindke v. Freed. “We hold that such speech is attributable to the State only if the official (1) possessed actual authority to speak on the State’s behalf, and (2) purported to exercise that authority when he spoke on social media.”
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A similar case, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, was sent back to the 9th Circuit for further consideration, given the court’s new criteria.
The Court heard arguments for the two cases in October. Lindke involved a Michigan man challenging a Port Huron official in court after the official blocked him on Facebook. O’Connor Ratcliff featured a pair of public school board trustees from Poway, California, who attempted to appeal a lower court ruling that favored parents suing them after the parents were blocked on X and Facebook.
The question of whether officials should consider blocking users a First Amendment violation initially arose due to former President Donald Trump, but the case was not taken up due to the court considering it after Trump left office.
The decision was released the same term as several other major social media and free speech-related decisions are being considered. The court heard oral arguments for NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton in February, both cases dealing with whether a state should be allowed to penalize a social media platform for their content moderation decisions.
The Court will also hear oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri on Monday. This case concerns whether certain forms of communication between federal agencies and social media platforms regarding the removal of particular posts constitute government-sanctioned censorship. The justices are expected to issue rulings on these three cases by the end of June.
