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I’m sharing the entire report from the ACLU<\/a> for easy reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By Vera Eidelman<\/a>, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology ProjectJANUARY 9, 2019 | 12:00 PM<\/p>\n\n\n\n ” One of the core purposes of the First Amendment is to allow people, regardless of their views, to hold the government accountable through expression.<\/strong> So, if your elected representative has an official Facebook page where she invites comments, can she block you from commenting because you criticize her work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a federal appeals court, the answer is a resounding no.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled<\/a> that the interactive portion of a public official\u2019s Facebook page is a \u201cpublic forum,\u201d so an official cannot block people from it because of the opinions they hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The case arose after the chair of a local board of supervisors in Virginia, Phyllis Randall, briefly blocked a critic from her official Facebook page and deleted a comment he made about her colleagues\u2019 management of public funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The critic, Brian Davison<\/strong>, represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute, filed a lawsuit arguing that Randall had violated his First Amendment rights by removing him from a public forum \u2014 space the government makes available for people\u2019s expressive activity \u2014 because she disagreed with his views. Randall countered that she has the authority to control the page\u2019s content \u2014 including the comments. (President Trump has used some of the same arguments in a lawsuit<\/a> against him for blocking people on Twitter.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n We filed a friend-of-the-court brief<\/a> in support of Davison, arguing that officials cannot prevent people from joining in a public conversation because of their viewpoints, and the three-judge appeals court panel agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important to remember that people who hold public office can wear two hats: Sometimes, they act as private individuals, and other times they are government actors. While they maintain their First Amendment rights<\/a> when acting as private individuals, they are subject to the limits the First Amendment places on the government whenever they\u2019re doing government work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the court rightly held, that includes any time that they\u2019re controlling a Facebook page they maintain in their official roles. Specifically, the court recognized that when a public official uses a Facebook page as a tool of governance \u2014 that is, when she uses it to inform the public about her government work, solicits input on policy issues through the page, and swathes it \u201cin the trappings of her office\u201d \u2014 she is controlling the page as a government actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if she opens that page to public comment, the interactive space of the Facebook page constitutes a public forum. The fact that the page exists on a website owned by a private company doesn\u2019t change that.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That means that, when a public official blocks critics from the page because of their viewpoints, she violates the Constitution. Indeed, the right to criticize the government is at the heart of the First Amendment. The court specifically recognized blocking as infringing on that right, noting that blocking someone in order to silence criticism of government work is itself evidence of government action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fourth Circuit is the first appellate court to opine on this issue, and its order controls public officials and agencies in Virginia and nearby states. Elsewhere around<\/a> the country<\/a>, public officials have also stopped censoring critics on their social media pages thanks to the work of the ACLU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These cases help to ensure that our First Amendment rights remain protected as our democracy increasingly moves online. The fact that a public official disagrees with you on an issue doesn\u2019t mean she can silence you. Indeed, it means the opposite \u2014 and that holds true whether you\u2019re speaking out in a public park, at a town hall meeting, or on a Facebook page. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n Needless to say, you have the responsibility not to use threats or violence on their page. That’s not covered under Free Speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LOCAL CONTACT for ACLU<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Send us an email<\/a> to office@acluhawaii.org<\/a> or call (808) 522-5900 (voice messages only, this line does NOT accept inquiries for our legal program.) <\/p>\n\n\n\nGeneral Inquiries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n