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14 LINDKE v. FREED Opinion of the Court function might make the plaintiff ’s argument a slam dunk. Take a mayor who makes the following announcement exclusively on his Facebook page: “Pursuant to Municipal Ordinance 22.1, I am temporarily suspending enforcement of alternate-side parking rules.” The post’s express invocation of state authority, its immediate legal effect, and the fact that the order is not available elsewhere make clear that the mayor is purporting to discharge an official duty. If, by contrast, the mayor merely repeats or shares otherwise available information—for example, by linking to the parking announcement on the city’s webpage—it is far less likely that he is purporting to exercise the power of his office. Instead, it is much more likely that he is engaging in private speech “relate[d] to his public employment” or “concern[ing] information learned during that employment.” Lane, 573 U. S., at 238. Hard-to-classify cases require awareness that an official does not necessarily purport to exercise his authority simply by posting about a matter within it. He might post job-related information for any number of personal reasons, from a desire to raise public awareness to promoting his prospects for reelection. Moreover, many public officials possess a broad portfolio of governmental authority that includes routine interaction with the public, and it may not be easy to discern a boundary between their public and private lives. Yet these officials too have the right to speak about public affairs in their personal capacities. See, e.g., id., at 235–236. Lest any official lose that right, it is crucial for the plaintiff to show that the official is purporting to exercise state authority in specific posts. And when there is doubt, additional factors might cast light—for example, an official who uses government staff to make a post will be hard pressed to deny that he was conducting government business. One last point: The nature of the technology matters to the state-action analysis. Freed performed two actions to

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Lindke v. Freed

Case Law

Country

United States

Country Location

Latitude: 39.778231903243785

Longitude: -100.8801256788983

Country Location (linked Case Law): United States

Decision Date: Mar 14, 2024

Case Status: In progress

Case Outcome (Procedural)

Remanded for Decision in Accordance with Ruling

Keywords

Content Moderation
Content Regulation / Censorship
Digital Rights
Political Expression
Public Officials
Social Media

Judicial Body: Supreme Court (court of final appeal)

Court Name: Supreme Court of the United States of America

Case Number: 22-611

Case Summary: The United States Supreme Court held that public officials may prevent people from commenting on their social media pages when they act in their private or personal capacity. The case involved, on the one hand, James Freed —who was appointed city manager of Port Huron, Michigan, and frequently posted both personal and official information on his Facebook profile—, and Kevin Lindke, another Facebook user who commented on one of Freed’s posts expressing his disagreement with the city’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Freed deleted Lindke’s comments and blocked him. Lindke claimed that Freed’s Facebook was a public forum because he was a public officer. He argued that Freed engaged in viewpoint discrimination by deleting unfavorable comments and blocking the people who wrote them, thus violating his freedom of expression under the First Amendment. Freed responded that by posting on Facebook, he was acting in his personal and private capacity, not as a public officer. The Supreme Court held that a public official engages in state action only if they possessed the actual authority to speak on the State’s behalf on a particular matter and purported to exercise that authority when speaking in the relevant social media posts. Further, the Court concluded that if these two conditions are not met, then the actions are not attributable to the State, and, thus, there can be no violation of the First Amendment, which necessarily requires governmental action. The Supreme Court did not solve the specific case but vacated the judgment and remanded it for further proceedings at the lower level.

Case Significance: In this case, the Supreme Court developed standards on how to differentiate whether public servants speak on social media in furtherance of their official responsibilities or exercising their own speech and rights. As the Court noted, the distinction is crucial for establishing possible liability under the First Amendment. On the one hand, by reaffirming public officers’ individual rights —to the point of holding that a government official can post about his job on social media in a private or personal capacity—, it can be argued that the ruling expands freedom of expression. However, on the other hand, this could also allow public servants to contract expression by deleting comments and blocking people from their profiles, which could hinder debates on matters of public interest.

The decision establishes a binding or persuasive precedent within its jurisdiction.

Source URL: Global Freedom of Expression

Collection

Columbia

Date Updated: Jul 19, 2024

Primary Documents

Decision
English
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CYRILLA: Global Digital Rights Law

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Lindke v. Freed

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