Consolidated with Lindke v. Freed

O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier involved public officials’ use of social media and the permissibility of blocking constituents who criticize them. In O’Connor-Ratcliff, the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of plaintiffs who sued several school board members for blocking them on Facebook and Twitter, holding that in doing so they violated the First Amendment. This case was argued alongside Lindke v. Freed, in which the lower court came to the opposite conclusion in a similar case.

On March 15, 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that public officials who block people who criticize them on social media can be held liable for First Amendment violations.

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