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Politicians Cannot Block Social Media Foes, US Appeals Court Rules (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal appeals court said on Monday a Virginia politician violated the Constitution by temporarily blocking a critic from her Facebook page, a decision that could affect President Donald Trump's appeal from a similar ruling in New York. In a 3-0 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Phyllis Randall, chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, violated the First Amendment free speech rights of Brian Davison by banning him for 12 hours from her "Chair Phyllis J. Randall" page.
The ban came after Davison had attended a 2016 town hall meeting, and then under his Facebook profile "Virginia SGP" accused school board members and their relatives of corruption and conflicts of interest. Randall had also removed her original post and all comments, including Davison's. Circuit Judge James Wynn rejected Randall's argument that her Facebook page was a private website, saying the "interactive component" was a public forum and that she engaged in illegal viewpoint discrimination. Davison's speech "occupies the core of the protection afforded by the First Amendment," Wynn wrote.
The ban came after Davison had attended a 2016 town hall meeting, and then under his Facebook profile "Virginia SGP" accused school board members and their relatives of corruption and conflicts of interest. Randall had also removed her original post and all comments, including Davison's. Circuit Judge James Wynn rejected Randall's argument that her Facebook page was a private website, saying the "interactive component" was a public forum and that she engaged in illegal viewpoint discrimination. Davison's speech "occupies the core of the protection afforded by the First Amendment," Wynn wrote.
Haha the Traitor in Chief is completely screwed. The little make believe world he lives in might have to allow visitors.
The next thing is that the politicians will call these people "trolls". Basically in 2019 anyone who doesn't agree with your thinking is a "troll". Rather than ignoring, or actual discussion, you just label the person a "troll".
You have a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to TROLL TRUMP! So get off of slashdot, and start playing in the BIG LEAGUE, trolls!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Blocking an obnoxious user from your page doesn't infringe on their speech. They can still post their comments, be they valid or obnoxious and obscene trolling on their own page as well as at other locations. I may be missing something but I see this akin to asking a police officer to remove someone who is heckling and disrupting a city council meeting. They aren't removed for having an opinion in opposition, but for disrupting the event. Similarly someone who never contributes anything but hate filled trolling should be block-able. The Government employee or elected official isn't throwing the person in jail or even cutting off their ability to post their information on other venues.
And blocking one individual or even a few from posting on the elected official's page does not deny anyone else the ability to read official statements or quasi-official opinions that may be posted there. The media will still carry the statements. Even if the individual is a reporter, blocking them does not prevent other journalists from participating on the site and reporting what is discussed there.
But this is an issue that really needs a Supreme Court review.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Every political opponent will now send swarms of trolls that will essentially disable the ability of any politician to reach an audience through social media. I am sure traditional media outlets will love this development since they will once again be able to control the narrative of any political discussion.
It only applies to politicians on their official pages, not to individuals or even a politician's personal account if they maintain a separate one.
The ruling was based on the politician's public page being considered a kind of public forum. It seems that the courts are finally starting to define which parts of the internet are a public forum, and it's worth noting that the ruling doesn't prevent social media platforms enforcing their terms of service.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The point was.... That very thing, is what needs to change.
Here's what I find interesting about this:
Facebook itself blocks people. It does it in a blanket fashion based on its terms of service, and it does it in a specific fashion if you do something they don't like and they decide you need to be stepped on. This has exactly the same chilling effect on political speech.
So there are people being prevented / forbidden from interacting on, or even reading, their politician's pages by Facebook, but here the court says the politician can't do that, because it is a 1st amendment issue. Will the courts say that Facebook can't do that either? Facebook is part of the mechanism that presents the information and facilitates the interaction – it doesn't seem like much of a leap from this ruling to telling Facebook it can't shut its doors on people (or telling politicians they can't use Facebook, because it's a limited speech forum.)
I wonder if, eventually, the courts will see the same argument, basically that Facebook has become a public forum and doesn't have the right to step on people's ability to interact with their politicians there.
On the one hand, Facebook is a private enterprise; but on the other, it's being used as a political pulpit, and that combination creates the lack of free access when people are prevented/forbidden to use the platform.
The argument accepted by the court is that this particular page is akin to a public forum debate, a kind of town-hall meeting, which is protected in the US.
The principal doesn't apply to almost anyone else or any other situation.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Does free speech give me the right to go into private meetings? How about a politician's home? They are not being blocked from expressing themselves, but being blocked from expressing themselves in a specific place. The question is are the online accounts private or public places. If the answer is online is a public place, then there is little privacy online.
If the page is being used as an extension of her office, or to encourage public participation or engagement, or is open for view or comment to the general public, then it is a public space. As such, as an elected official, she has no right to remove someone from that space as long as they are not causing a disturbance or acting in a disruptive manner, no matter what the message is (as long as it is germane to the topic being discussed or her position as an elected official). If you are holding a public meeting and I am given the floor and politely and professionally say something you don't like you have no right or recourse to remove me, just as she doesn't with her Facebook page.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Blocking an obnoxious user from your page doesn't infringe on their speech.
Not true at all, particularly when it comes to a politician in a public context. And just because you think someone are obnoxious does not mean your sentiments are shared. Furthermore the entire point of the first amendment is that you have an iron clad right to be obnoxious provided you don't endanger anyone or cause material or economic damange by doing so.
They can still post their comments, be they valid or obnoxious and obscene trolling on their own page as well as at other locations.
That's like saying someone cannot petition their leaders because they are able to say what they want in a cornfield where no one is listening. If someone wants public office they don't get to pick and choose who gets to express their opinion or where they express it. If they allow comments from some they have to allow comments from all.
I may be missing something but I see this akin to asking a police officer to remove someone who is heckling and disrupting a city council meeting.
You are missing something. A city council meeting bears no resemblance whatsoever to an online forum nor is the purpose of them even vaguely similar. An page like the one in question here is effectively a public debate with the public. The politician chose to have a public page and there is some baggage that comes with that. There is a difference between interrupting the ability of the elected officials to do their job and elected officials selectively suppressing the free speech rights of people they don't care for or whose opinions they don't agree with.
Even if the individual is a reporter, blocking them does not prevent other journalists from participating on the site and reporting what is discussed there.
So now you are promoting censoring the press too. You seem to think that blocking one individual reporter somehow is justifiable and that it would stop there. You think politicians should have a right to only participate with the parts of the press who agree with them? BAD idea.
And blocking one individual or even a few from posting on the elected official's page does not deny anyone else the ability to read official statements or quasi-official opinions that may be posted there.
If the point of the page is to simply post official statements then there is no need for ANYONE to be able to post comments. They don't get to pick and choose only the comments or people they like. Elected officials represent everyone, whether or not they agree with them.
Uh, I'm pretty sure the White House could disallow cameras or reporters in general on premises.
They just can't throw out the ones that they don't like but allow the rest in.
You would only have a point if the Supreme Court allowed cameras from CNN but not from Fox, as-is you just failed to see the point.
Here's the thing: if a politician puts themselves out to the public in a place where the public can't get to them, then they have proactively limited access.
So either the politician is erring in using Facebook because it is not a public space, or Facebook has become a public space and is erring in limiting access to the public.
One way or another, there's a 1st amendment problem here.
Uh, I'm pretty sure the White House could disallow cameras or reporters in general on premises. They just can't throw out the ones that they don't like but allow the rest in. You would only have a point if the Supreme Court allowed cameras from CNN but not from Fox, as-is you just failed to see the point.
Actually.... You are mostly right, with just a bit of clarification..
The White House was told it couldn't subjectively decide who gets a press pass and who doesn't. It was told that it needed an objective set of rules that it follows in this decision making process and not some "You are being rude!" subjective criteria for tossing a reporter to the curb. I believe we have a set of rules now for White House press pass holders, and the craziness of press briefings has abated at least a bit.
Personally, I think we should just go to a press pool with three reporters (News Paper, TV, Radio) for normal White House briefings and take a given number of questions in turn from all three, allowing one follow-up each. But I seriously doubt the President and the Press would go for that as both want the spectacle for different reasons.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Facebook can't block trump
Oh yes they can... A private company can do what it wants with its platform and in this case the Government cannot hold them criminally liable for it..
Unless you mean they cannot block Trump for practical and profit reasons... In which case, I agree. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot profit wise if they did do this.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't think it goes that far. It's focused on the user, not the social media company. The user can't take actions to block and restrict based on viewpoint discrimination on their public pages. It doesn't obligate Facebook or Twitter to treat any particular parts of their services like public forums, though.
I can be 100% cordial to the politician; even a supporter of them! If FB/Twitter bans me for other actions, then they are explicitly stopping me from interacting with my politician. Now that there is a right to associate with a politician's official FB page, any action by FB that prevents me from doing so would be a 1st Amendment violation. So if FB finds my posts offensive and bans my account - then they are opening themselves up to a 1st Amendment lawsuit.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And even that standard is stupid.
The press is invited to the briefings. Only a limited number of the press get passes. You can bet there is no objective evaluation of who gets the passes and who doesn't. It's all going to be subjective, although admittedly carried out in a context of "tradition"...i.e. ABC has ALWAYS had a pass, etc.
I think the courts have generally over stepped their bounds with regards to the Executive Branch. One could argue that the Courts have no jurisdiction what-so-ever in this kind of matter because of the separation of powers.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The old term which I feel should be relevant for Politician is "Public Servant". We as citizens are THEIR BOSS, not the other way around. We grant elected officials the power to create laws, enforce them, provide judgement... They may be bosses of down their government bureaucracy, however we are their boss, who should be electing them in and out of their position.
Being that we are their bosses, they shouldn't have the right to block negative feedback on the professional pages.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's not a question of who, it's a question of the nature of the thing being blocked from.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
One could have said the same thing about politicians blocking people...until the decision.
Make no mistake...this has opened a Pandora's Box of litigation.
It should be fun and interesting.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm not in disagreement with you on this. I think the White House should have 100% say in who gets access to what and when for what ever reason they choose to do so as well. What I was trying to do was put a fine point on what the court ruling was, not what my opinion was.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This ruling would seem to have no effect on the owners of the forums - rather it's focused on the *users* of the forum. If you're a user using the forum for official government business/public communication, then you are not allowed to unilaterally silence your political rivals there, any more than you can do so with ads on privately owned television networks.
If on the other hand it's the owners of the forum who decide to block your rivals - that's a different issue, but you should probably expect an investigation to make sure there was no collusion on your part.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Nope because you never enter anybody is properly all you do is ask them if they will send you things. And then the servers transmit that information out into the public infrastructure. You never enter their server at all all you do is send Messages to ask their servers for information. And then that server then sends you a message. Internet is a public forum made of privately owned equipment. The equipment may be privately owned but the entity known as the internet is public, buy measure of interaction if not intent. Anything connected to the internet is fair game. You can't connect to a public network and still claim privacy because it's unenforceable and not supported by physical reality
Blanket blocking of feedback is wholesale violation of First Amendment "Free Speech" rights, and a violation of various feedback-required public discourse laws and rules across all government branches. To this day, many municipalities are getting sued for NOT providing transparency and NOT actively soliciting public feedback... especially as it relates to local matters such as sexual predators moving across school grounds, design reviews for sun-blocking skyscrapers, construction practices in residential neighborhoods, and changes in electoral jurisdictions (which was itself overturned by SCOTUS).