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.”