During a Tuesday hearing, the Supreme Court considered whether public officials should be required to include disclaimers on their personal social media accounts and discussed various tests for determining when public officials blocking critics on personal social media accounts violates the First Amendment.
The justices heard arguments from lawyers representing the petitioners and respondents in two cases involving public officials who blocked citizens on their personal social media accounts.
In the first case, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that school board members Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane had violated the First Amendment when they blocked two parents, Christopher Garnier and Kimberly Garnier, on Facebook and Twitter after they posted long, often repetitive criticisms of the board.