US appeals court rules elected officials can't block people on social media

[Borealis]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-facebook-decision/politicians-cannot-block-social-media-foes-u-s-appeals-court-idUSKCN1P11SC?utm_source=reddit.com

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court said on Monday a Virginia politician violated the Constitution by temporarily blocking a critic from her Facebook page, a decision that could affect
President Donald Trump’s appeal from a similar ruling in New York.

In a 3-0 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Phyllis Randall, chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, violated the First Amendment free speech rights of
Brian Davison by banning him for 12 hours from her “Chair Phyllis J. Randall” page.

The ban came after Davison had attended a 2016 town hall meeting, and then under his Facebook profile “Virginia SGP” accused school board members and their relatives of
corruption and conflicts of interest. Randall had also removed her original post and all comments, including Davison’s.

Circuit Judge James Wynn rejected Randall’s argument that her Facebook page was a private website, saying the “interactive component” was a public forum and that she engaged in
illegal viewpoint discrimination. Davison’s speech “occupies the core of the protection afforded by the First Amendment,” Wynn wrote.

Lower courts have disagreed over whether government officials’ social media pages are public forums. Davison’s case was the first of its kind at the federal appellate level, and other
courts could cite it as precedent.

[BackSapper]

Good to hear that my boy Big Money can't ever be blocked by Ted Cruz while he's in office.

[fancy ghost ☂]

I've wondered about these cases. What makes a 'public forum' a public forum? Does anonymity prevent that? Do rust kids actually have legal standing when they get banned here and cry about free speech??

[Curls]

Hopefully they make general speech unblockable as well

twitter bans are out of control

[elix]

I think it becomes a 'public' forum when a politician begins using it for official business, which makes it a hosting ground for protected political speech. American citizens have a constitutional right to petition their government and if a government official e.g. Trump prevents the public from contacting him/her to exercise protected constitutional speech by e.g. blocking people on Twitter then the constitutional rights of the blocked user are being violated.

Rust kids bitching to garry have no claim to protected public speech. Facepunch is a private forum, Rust is a game by a private studio, and nobody has any right to be here.

[nikomo]

I'm 99% sure that would be against the 13th amendment (involuntary servitude), you'd be forcing Twitter to host something and pay for the hosting.
Centralized platforms are all controlled somehow - if you want uncontrolled speech online, you're going to need some sort of decentralized service like Diaspora.

[Firgof Umbra]

I'm in full agreement with this but would add a caveat: when whatever the private thing is becomes so public that it is ubiquitous I believe at that point it should be regarded as a public utility and, therefore, the interests of the public would at that point outweight the interests of the private thing that has become so popular and massive that it is now a public thing.