12 LINDKE v. FREED Opinion of the Court authorized to speak for the State. Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist., 597 U. S. 507, 529 (2022) (quoting Garcetti, 547 U. S., at 424). The inquiry is not whether making official announcements could fit within the job description; it is whether making official announcements is actually part of the job that the State entrusted the official to do. In sum, a defendant like Freed must have actual authority rooted in written law or longstanding custom to speak for the State. That authority must extend to speech of the sort that caused the alleged rights deprivation. If the plaintiff cannot make this threshold showing of authority, he cannot establish state action. B For social-media activity to constitute state action, an official must not only have state authority—he must also purport to use it. Griffin, 378 U. S., at 135. State officials have a choice about the capacity in which they choose to speak. “[G]enerally, a public employee” purports to speak on behalf of the State while speaking “in his official capacity or” when he uses his speech to fulfill “his responsibilities pursuant to state law.” West, 487 U. S., at 50. If the public employee does not use his speech in furtherance of his official responsibilities, he is speaking in his own voice. Consider a hypothetical from the offline world. A school board president announces at a school board meeting that the board has lifted pandemic-era restrictions on public schools. The next evening, at a backyard barbecue with friends whose children attend public schools, he shares that the board has lifted the pandemic-era restrictions. The former is state action taken in his official capacity as school board president; the latter is private action taken in his personal capacity as a friend and neighbor. While the substance of the announcement is the same, the context—an official meeting versus a private event—differs. He invoked his official authority only when he acted as school board