Facebook Posts Not State Acts, 6th Cir. Says in Free Speech Case

The Port Huron, Mich., city manager didn’t violate the First Amendment when he blocked a critic from his Facebook page, even though he sometimes posted about work, the Sixth Circuit said Monday.

James Freed started his private Facebook page before he was the Port Huron city manager, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said in its ruling issued Monday. As the page grew to over 5,000 followers, it became public.

Freed posted pictures and comments about his family and occasionally about things that happened at work. In 2020, he posted about the policies he initiated to combat ...