Applying the Public Forum Doctrine to Public Official and Campaign Social Media Accounts
Jonathan Peters & Skylar Bandoly | 27 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. 757 (2025)
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in the 2019 case Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University v. Trump that the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account was a designated public forum, making it a First Amendment violation for President Trump to block users from it on the basis of their viewpoints. A few years later, in the 2024 case Lindke v. Freed, the US Supreme Court established a two-part test to determine whether a public official’s social media activity constituted state action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Article reviews these and related cases to explore—in the context of public forum analysis—how courts have addressed the personal social media accounts of public officials and the campaign accounts of candidates running for elected office, particularly if the candidate is running for re-election. This Article also offers several proposals regarding how courts should address such accounts.