Public officers can block haters—however solely typically, SCOTUS guidelines

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There are some circumstances the place authorities officers are allowed to dam individuals from commenting on their social media pages, the Supreme Court docket dominated Friday.

In response to the Supreme Court docket, the important thing query is whether or not officers are talking as personal people or on behalf of the state when posting on-line. Issuing two opinions, the Supreme Court docket declined to set a transparent normal for when private social media use constitutes state speech, leaving every distinctive case to be determined by decrease courts.

As a substitute, SCOTUS supplied a take a look at for courts to resolve first if somebody is or isn’t talking on behalf of the state on their social media pages, after which if they really have authority to behave on what they submit on-line.