WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday with whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that first arose in a case involving former President Donald Trump.
The justices heard arguments in two cases involving lawsuits filed by people who were blocked after leaving critical comments on social media accounts belonging to school board members in southern California and a city manager in Port Huron, Michigan, northeast of Detroit.
The cases force the court to deal with the competing free speech rights of public officials and their constituents, and all in a rapidly evolving virtual world.
The cases are part of a term-long focus on the relationship between government and the private digital platforms. Justice Clarence Thomas hinted at coming cases when he described as “the looming elephant in the room” the power of Facebook and other platforms to take down accounts.
Early next year, the court will evaluate Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. The tech companies said the laws violate their First Amendment rights. The laws reflect a view among Republicans that the platforms disproportionately censor conservative viewpoints.
Also on the agenda is a challenge from Missouri and Louisiana to the Biden administration’s efforts to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security. The states argue that the administration has been unconstitutionally coercing the platforms into cracking down on conservative positions.
Tuesday’s cases delving into the common use of social media by public officials are less overtly partisan. But they are similar to a case involving Trump and his decision to block critics from his personal account on Twitter, now known as X. The justices dismissed the case after Trump left office.
The @realdonaldtrump account had more than 88 million followers, but Trump argued that it was his personal property.
“But he seems to be doing, you know, a lot of government on his Twitter account,” Kagan said. “I mean, sometimes he was announcing policies. Even when he wasn’t, I mean, I don’t think a citizen would be able to really understand the Trump presidency, if you will, without any access to all the things that the president said on that account.”
Appeals courts in San Francisco and Cincinnati reached conflicting decisions about when personal accounts become official, and it seemed that the justices did not wholly embrace either ruling.
The justices did seem to agree that they should provide a clear legal standard, though where they would come down was unclear.
The first case involved two elected members of a California school board, the Poway Unified School District Board of Trustees. The members, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane, used their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with the public. Two parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, left critical comments and replies to posts on the board members’ accounts and were blocked. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the board members had violated the parents’ free speech rights by doing so. Zane no longer serves on the school board.
The other case involved James Freed, who was appointed Port Huron ’s city manager in 2014. Freed used the Facebook page he first created while in college to communicate with the public, as well as recount the details of daily life.