Tennessee lawmaker Jeremy Faison, a prominent Republican figure and chairman of the state House GOP Caucus, has emerged at the center of a court case with broader implications for how public officials use social media and what rights their constituents have when they engage online.
Faison operates a Facebook page that blends political messaging with personal content.
That blend became a legal flashpoint when a man named Fox, who doesn’t live in Faison’s district, posted comments that were subsequently deleted.
After being blocked from the page, Fox filed a lawsuit, arguing that Faison had violated his constitutional rights.
The court didn’t see it that way.
Citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lindke v. Freed, the judge determined that Faison was not acting in an official state capacity even when using the page to perform functions associated with his role as a legislator.
We obtained the opinion for you here.
Because individual lawmakers cannot, by law, speak on behalf of the state, the court said Faison’s moderation of comments wasn’t subject to First Amendment constraints.
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