Court Rules Against Politician Who Banned Access to Her Facebook Page
Court Rules Against Politician Who Banned Access to Her
Facebook Page
Facebook page of Virginia county politician is forum
protected by the First Amendment, judge says
By Joe Palazzolo July 27, 2017 1:30 p.m. ET
A federal court in Virginia ruled that a local politician
violated the free-speech rights of a constituent she banned from her Facebook
page, in a case the judge said raises “important questions” about the
constitutional restrictions that apply to social media accounts of elected
officials.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge James Cacheris in
Alexandria, Va., could buttress a lawsuit in New York alleging that President
Donald Trump unconstitutionally suppressed dissent by blocking Twitter users
from following his account.
President Trump’s frequent use of Twitter has added
urgency to First Amendment questions revolving around the use of social media
by public officials.
In the Virginia case, Brian Davison sued the chairwoman
of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who temporarily banned him from her
Facebook page after he posted criticism of local officials last year.
Judge Cacheris, finding that Phyllis Randall was acting
as a public official on her Facebook page, said Ms. Randall committed “a
cardinal sin under the First Amendment.”
“The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected
officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which
the First Amendment guards,” Judge Cacheris wrote in his 44-page ruling on
Tuesday.
Ms. Randall, who lifted the ban against Mr. Davison after
12 hours, faces no penalty. Judge Cacheris said the consequences of her actions
were “fairly minor.”
Julia Judkins, a Fairfax, Va., lawyer who represents Ms.
Randall, said Judge Cacheris erred in equating Ms. Randall’s personal Facebook
page to a government account.
“How does this one person’s Facebook page that she’s not
using county resources to maintain...how does that become like the government?”
Ms. Judkins said.
Judge Cacheris noted that Ms. Randall used her Facebook
page to solicit comments from her constituents.
Mr. Davison, a software consultant, said Ms. Randall
posted during business hours and meshed the trappings of her office, including
her government email address, into her account.
“She wants the public to believe she’s transparent but
then to ban critics,” he said.
Ms. Randall said she blocked Mr. Davison briefly because
he posted comments that mentioned the family of elected officials, but that she
wouldn’t block anyone solely for making comments critical of public officials
themselves.
A separate lawsuit filed by Mr. Davison against county
school board officials who blocked him, alleging similar violations, is pending
before another judge on the Alexandria-based federal trial court. A decision
could come at any time.
Judge Cacheris said Ms. Randall is still free to moderate
comments on her Facebook page, and he cautioned that his ruling shouldn’t be
read as prohibiting all public officials from blocking commenters from their
social media accounts.
Earlier this year, Judge Cacheris dismissed another
lawsuit by Mr. Davison against a state prosecutor who deleted Mr. Davison’s
comments from the prosecutor’s official Facebook page.
The judge ruled that the deletion was constitutional
because the plaintiff had attempted to “hijack the discussion” in violation of
a government social-media policy that permitted the removal of “clearly
off-topic” comments. The case is on appeal.
Ms. Randall’s case could influence other courts weighing
what Judge Cacheris described as “important questions about the constitutional
limitations applicable to social media accounts maintained by elected
officials.”
The lawsuit against Mr. Trump in federal court in
Manhattan was brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia
University on behalf of seven users whom Mr. Trump blocked.
“We hope the courts look to this opinion as a road map in
holding that it is unconstitutional for President Trump to block his critics on
Twitter,” said Alex Abdo, senior staff attorney at the institute.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request
for comment.
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