{"id":926,"date":"2017-08-11T22:01:48","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T12:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brolly.com.au\/?p=926"},"modified":"2020-11-12T08:30:25","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T21:30:25","slug":"could-you-be-sued-for-blocking-someone-on-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brolly.io\/ca\/blog\/2017\/08\/11\/could-you-be-sued-for-blocking-someone-on-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"Could you be sued for blocking someone on Twitter?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Does blocking someone on Twitter restrict their freedom of speech? The American Civil Liberties Union<\/a> (ACLU) think so. In the United States, governors of Maine, Maryland, Kentucky and President Donald Trump have been warned \u2013and in some cases are being sued\u2014 for blocking critics on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In warning letters, the ACLU has stated that \u201cyour social media pages are a public forum, your blocking of these individuals is an unconstitutional restriction on their right to free speech under the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They point out that by utilising social media, the government has opened themselves to engaging with the public on these forums.  \u201cYou and your office have embraced social media as a key means of communicating and interacting with constituents and the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of these government agencies defend blocking followers because of unsolicited abuse and spam on social channels. The ACLU notes that if people\u2019s \u201cposted messages do not contain obscenity, threats or other speech that can be lawfully restricted under the First Amendment, members of the public must be allowed to participate in any forum for public expression opened by public officials through online social media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this impact your organisation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the past year, 103 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have been made through the Australian website Right to Know<\/a>. Of these requests, approximately 85% relate to social media policy and include the policies and procedures for moderating public comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States government has a long history of protecting the public rights enshrined in the First Amendment and are well versed in social media engagement and risk. In Australia, the number of FOI requests relating to social media policy and procedure shows that this is an issue that will continue to gain momentum, especially for government organisations that have legal requirements to engage with citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do to minimise risk?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Create a social media policy and moderation guide
<\/strong>Create clear social media policies and moderating procedures and make sure your social media team has regular training and support to facilitate them<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create and share your community guidelines<\/strong>
Your community should have a clear understanding of how your organisation responds to comments, abuse and spam. Ensure your community guidelines are prominently displayed on your social platforms and website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capture your social media records<\/strong>
Having a social media archiving tool will save the time it takes to manually capture your social media engagement, making it easy to search, retrieve and reference if required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with all communication channels, engaging on social media has its share of risks for organisations. By recording your social media engagement and creating a clear policy, moderation guide and community guidelines your organisation will be well placed to respond to FOI requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does blocking someone on Twitter restrict their freedom of speech? The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) think so. In the United States, governors of Maine, Maryland, Kentucky and President Donald Trump have been warned \u2013and in some cases are being sued\u2014 for blocking critics on Twitter. In warning letters, the ACLU has stated that \u201cyour social media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCould you be sued for blocking someone on Twitter? | Brolly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"According to recent ACLU guidance, you can be sued for blocking people on Twitter. 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