Posted on Nov 1, 2023
At the Supreme Court, 'First Amendment interests all over the place'
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https://www.npr.org/2023/10/31/ [login to see] /supreme-court-social-media-block
The usually quite certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to be uncertainly groping their way on Tuesday, as they sought to craft a new rule for dealing with the social media age.
At issue were cases that test the ability of public officials to block critics from their "personal" social medial pages, a practice that Donald Trump often engaged in when he was president.
The first of Tuesday's cases dealt with two local school board members in Poway, Calif. They blocked two persistently critical parents from their social media pages, and the parents sued, contending the school officials had used their government authority to violate their First Amendment right of free speech.
The usually quite certain justices of the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to be uncertainly groping their way on Tuesday, as they sought to craft a new rule for dealing with the social media age.
At issue were cases that test the ability of public officials to block critics from their "personal" social medial pages, a practice that Donald Trump often engaged in when he was president.
The first of Tuesday's cases dealt with two local school board members in Poway, Calif. They blocked two persistently critical parents from their social media pages, and the parents sued, contending the school officials had used their government authority to violate their First Amendment right of free speech.
At the Supreme Court, 'First Amendment interests all over the place'
Posted from npr.org
Supreme Court
1st Amendment
Social Media
Donald Trump
Posted 6 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The first of Tuesday's cases dealt with two local school board members in Poway, Calif. They blocked two persistently critical parents from their social media pages, and the parents sued, contending the school officials had used their government authority to violate their First Amendment right of free speech.
Representing the school board members, lawyer Hashim Mooppan told the justices that the social media pages were extensions of the board members’ campaign pages and thus were purely personal because the state had no control over them.
That prompted Justice Samuel Alito to ask, "What if you showed a Facebook page to a thousand people and 999 of them would think that this is an official page? Under your test, that wouldn't matter?"
"That shouldn't matter," Mooppan replied."...
..."The first of Tuesday's cases dealt with two local school board members in Poway, Calif. They blocked two persistently critical parents from their social media pages, and the parents sued, contending the school officials had used their government authority to violate their First Amendment right of free speech.
Representing the school board members, lawyer Hashim Mooppan told the justices that the social media pages were extensions of the board members’ campaign pages and thus were purely personal because the state had no control over them.
That prompted Justice Samuel Alito to ask, "What if you showed a Facebook page to a thousand people and 999 of them would think that this is an official page? Under your test, that wouldn't matter?"
"That shouldn't matter," Mooppan replied."...
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