WASHINGTON — From now on, the official Facebook page for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will have to include a “constituent message page.”
That’s thanks to a settlement agreed to by the state’s Board of Public Works and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.
In August, ACLU sued on behalf of four people who complained that they were banned or blocked from the governor’s Facebook page for posts that were critical of the governor. The ACLU alleged that blocking people from posting to the site amounted to censorship of protected free speech.
Meredith Curtis Goode, communications director for the ACLU of Maryland, called the settlement significant, explaining that “it sets up a model social media policy across the country.”
Hogan is not alone in being targeted by civil liberties groups for banning users on social media.
In July, a federal judge ruled that Phyllis Randall, chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, had violated the First Amendment rights of a man who had posted to her Facebook page when she blocked him from her page. Even though she unblocked him the following morning, a federal judge maintained that the man’s rights had been violated.
James Laurenson of Bethesda; Meredith Phillips of Columbia; Janice Lepore of Catonsville; and Molly Handley, now of Seattle, Washington, were plaintiffs in the Maryland suit. All stated that their comments had been removed and that they’d been blocked from the site after posting on a variety of topics including the Syrian refugee crisis, the Trump administration’s travel ban and Maryland education policy.
Shareese DeLeaver-Churchill, Hogan’s press secretary, called the suit “frivolous and politically motivated” and in a statement said the decision to settle was deemed best to prevent “wasting everyone’s time and resources in court.”
