COMMENTARY / World

It's just fine if public officials block you on social media

The Supreme Court got it right in issuing a sensible, pragmatic ruling

Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on March 18 as justices hear arguments on whether the government has the right to encourage social media companies to remove content it deems misinformation. | REUTERS

By Noah Feldman
Bloomberg

Mar 19, 2024

In a unanimous, pragmatic opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court just drew a roadmap allowing public officials to block users on social media.

Faced with the argument that getting blocked violated a user’s free speech rights, the court held that the First Amendment only bars blocking by public officials who use social media to exercise government authority.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the sole opinion for the court, which deftly transformed a complex, potentially divisive issue into a simple doctrinal question. Instead of diving into the tricky issue of whose free speech is implicated in social-media blocking — that of the account holder, the person blocked, or even the platform itself — the court instead narrowed the question to whether the public official is engaged in "state action.”