The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came in the case of two Poway Unified School district trustees who blocked a couple from their Facebook and Twitter pages.
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in a case from the Poway Unified School District that public officials who use social media accounts to discuss official duties can violate free speech rights when they block comments.from a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals centered on the Facebook and Twitter pages of school district trustees T.J. Zane and Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff.
Zane and O’Connor-Ratcliff had set up Facebook pages as part of their election campaigns in 2014, and O’Connor-Ratcliff in 2016 set up a Twitter account. After winning the election they continued to use the pages to discuss district issues and actions. They also had private Facebook pages which they shared only with friends and family, the court said.
“When state actors enter that virtual world and invoke their government status to create a forum for such expression, the First Amendment enters with them,” she concluded. “This is something they open to everyone, and the people who get canceled or blocked are the people whose messages they don’t like,” said Briggs.O’Connor-Ratcliff and a lawyer for the district did not respond to messages Wednesday.
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