James Freed converted his private Facebook profile to a public page, thus allowing anyone to see and comment on his posts. In 2014, Freed become the city manager for Port Huron, Michigan, and began posting information related to his job, such as highlighting communications from other city officials and soliciting feedback from the public on issues of public concern. Kevin Lindke commented on Freed’s Facebook posts, and he expressed his disagreement with the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Freed then began deleting Linke’s comments and eventually blocked him from commenting at all. Lindke sued Freed under 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleging that Freed had violated his First Amendment rights. The District Court determined that because Freed managed his Facebook page in his private capacity, and because only state action can give rise to liability under §1983, Lindke’s claim failed. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
On appeal to the US Supreme Court, the Court first observed that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental abridgment of speech, not private abridgment of speech. The question for the Court was whether Freed acted as a State Official engaged in state action or functioned as a private citizen. If Freed acted in his private capacity when he blocked Lindke and deleted his comments, he did not violate Lindke’s First Amendment rights—instead, he exercised his own. The Court concluded that social-media activity constitutes state action under §1983 only if the official (1) possessed actual authority to speak on the State’s behalf, and (2) purported to exercise that authority when he spoke on social media. To find that Freed acted with the authority of the State, that authority must have been 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. The inquiry is not whether making official announcements could fit within the public official’s job description; it is whether making official announcements is part of the job that the State entrusted the official to do.
The Court noted that if the public official’s social media page carried a disclaimer that it was a personal page or the views expressed were strictly personal views not on behalf of the government employer, it would be presumed the posts were indeed personal. The Court also ruled that a public official who fails to keep personal posts in a clearly designated personal account exposes himself to greater potential liability.