POWAY — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 15 that public officials can face legal action for blocking social media users on their pages, a decision partially stemming from a case in which two Poway Unified School Board trustees blocked a pair of parents over frequent, critical social media comments.
The court ruled in two cases, one of which concerned parents Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, who sued after they were blocked from the social media pages of PUSD trustees Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T. J. Zane. A federal judge previously ruled in favor of the Garniers, and an appellate court panel affirmed that ruling.
The other case involved the city manager of Port Huron, Michigan, who similarly blocked a user who posted criticisms on the city manager’s Facebook page regarding the city’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court in Friday’s decision that the issue is whether a public official’s social media use constitutes “state action” or simple personal use of the platform as a private citizen.
If an official is found to engage in state action while using their social media page, blocking a user entirely could open them up to liability, she wrote.
However, Barrett wrote that courts must closely examine an official’s social media use to find whether it constitutes state action, as many social media pages feature a blend of official and personal use.
In the Poway case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the PUSD trustees were acting as state officials in their social media use and violated the Garniers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them.
The Supreme Court returned the Poway case to the 9th Circuit for re-examination under a new standard that the justices established on Friday. This standard states that officials must have state authority and “also purport to use it” to constitute state action.
In a related matter also arising out of North County San Diego, five Encinitas residents filed a free speech lawsuit against state Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) in September 2022 for blocking their public comments on her then-mayoral Facebook page.
At the time, no law prohibited a private individual from restricting access to their personal social media profiles.
However, federal rulings leading up to last week’s Supreme Court ruling determined that constitutional violations can be triggered if an elected officeholder restricts public access to a social media page utilized for activities related to their official capacity.
Blakespear eventually settled the lawsuit the following year and issued a public apology, presumably as part of the deal. The settlement ended a lengthy legal battle that was poised to enter the appeal phase in response to Blakespear’s anti-SLAPP victory, which awarded her more than $120,000 in attorney’s fees.
City News Service contributed to this report.
