• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 10, 2020

A mayor in California who criticized some Black Lives Matter protesters violated the First Amendment by blocking Facebook users who disagreed with her, an advocacy group says.

“The First Amendment applies to public officials who use their social media accounts as an extension of their office,” Katie Fallow, an attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, writes in a letter sent Wednesday to Irvine mayor Christina Shea.

She adds that federal judges have ruled that public officials who use social media accounts for government purposes, and allow the public to post comments, can't then block people based on their opinions.

Fallow says Shea recently blocked several people from her Facebook page based on their viewpoints, including constituent Nikka Aminmadani, an Irvine native and Vanderbilt University student.

The dispute with Aminmadani dates to last week, shortly after Shea (or her staff) posted controversial statements on Facebook about the protests against police brutality. (Those posts were subsequently deleted.)

On June 3, Aminmadani commented in response to two of Shea's posts.

“I want to preface this with saying that this comes out of a place of respect and an attempt to help you learn because you have a lot to learn,” Aminmadani said in one of her comments. “You should first promote for police to treat black Americans with respect and dignity so that they are able to walk out of their homes without the fear of experiencing systemic racism in the same way that you have this freedom.”

Soon afterwards, Sheas blocked Aminmadani on Facebook, according to the Knight Institute.

The organization says that move was unconstitutional, arguing that the account is a “public forum” -- comparable to a city park -- because Shea it to communicate with the public and solicit feedback about governmental issues.

“When government officials create a public forum, as you have done, they may not exclude individuals from those forums based on viewpoint,” Fallow writes.

She is asking Shea to unblock Aminmadani and anyone else who was blocked based on their views, and to stop deleting critical comments.

A federal appellate court ruled recently that President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.

The Department of Justice had argued that the @realDonaldTrump account was "personal," not governmental, but the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was "overwhelming" evidence of the account's official nature.

The 2nd Circuit judges noted that since becoming president, Trump has used the account almost daily to communicate about his administration. “He uses the account to announce 'matters related to official government business,' including high-level White House and cabinet level staff changes as well as changes to major national policies” the opinion states.

The Justice Department hasn't yet said whether it plans to ask the Supreme Court to review that ruling.