Thanks to a number of state and , not to mention national actors like , questions abound these days about the constitutionality of public officials blocking people on social media.
The answers to those questions are complicated and depend on the facts of any given case. But, as we explain in a brief we filed in a Virginia lawsuit this week, the proper framework for courts to use in considering these cases should ensure that as our democracy increasingly moves online, the Constitution applies with no less force on the internet than it does offline.
Two main principles should govern these cases: First, individuals do not lose their First Amendment rights just by virtue of gaining public office, no matter how powerful they are. Second, when they act on behalf of the government, elected officials are also subject to the limits that the First Amendment imposes on them as government actors.
To answer this conundrum, courts must begin by asking which role a public official embodies on a given social media account: that of a private speaker or a government actor. If the answer is “private speaker,” she can limit her audience and curate the messages on the page, just like any other member of the public. But if the answer is “government actor,” the First Amendment dictates that she can’t prohibit access to her social media in three specific circumstances.
First, once she intentionally opens up her social media for public conversation, she can’t stop people from joining in because of the views they express on the topics at hand. Second, if she generally allows individuals to ask for government services through her social media account, she can’t block critical voices from doing so. And, finally, if she uses her account to publicly share government information, she can’t prevent people from actually being able to see her posts because of their viewpoints.
This is all for good reason. Allowing a government actor to ban critics from speaking in public forums would silence and chill dissent, warp the public conversation, and skew public perception. And enabling government actors to block critics from petitioning them for services or seeing public information would mean punishing them for speaking out or holding critical views.
How does a court apply that test to specific facts? Let’s consider the Virginia case. There, a chairwoman of the board of supervisors of Loudoun County, Va., created an “official chairwoman” . She uses that official page to share information with constituents, give them a space to discuss “any issues,” and find out who needs emergency relief during snowstorms. She generally keeps the page open to all, but she briefly blocked the plaintiff in the case — a constituent who criticized members of the board she chairs.
In this circumstance, we think the chairwoman is clearly a “government actor” because of the contents of the page and its links to her activity as a public official. That leads to the next question: Does she offer the page as a public forum, a way to petition her for public services, or as a space to share government information? Her posts inviting “any” constituent to comment on “any issues” suggest that she has at least opened it up as a place for public discussion. That means that she violated the First Amendment by blocking a constituent from commenting on her page because he expressed criticism of her colleagues.
Let’s try one more. What about President Trump? @realDonaldTrump is clearly an official government account, by the Department of Justice’s own . That means Trump cannot claim that the First Amendment does not apply to the digital acts conducted on that account. The second part of the test depends on the facts that will be found by the court: namely, whether President Trump has opened his feed up as a forum for public discussion. If the answer is yes, his blocking of users violates the Constitution. If the answer is no, the public is still entitled to see his tweets, since he issues official decisions — like his intention to transgender people from serving in the military — through that account. However, given Twitter’s current policies, even those “blocked” by a certain account, or those without a Twitter account at all, can still see public tweets. So it may be a social media company’s specific technology that dictates the ultimate constitutional result in that case.
More often than not, the First Amendment traffics in nuance, detail, and government intent. In applying it to the internet, we should expect nothing less.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
MississippiJul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
We break down the absurd-but-true history of trying to censor sexual speech under the guise of "keeping kids safe." -
Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.