Person critical of police blocked on Durango Police Facebook page

A person critical of the police has been blocked from the Durango Police Facebook page.

To be fair, most of the 40 Facebook accounts that the staff at Durango Police blocked were spammers or scammers.

However, there was one personal Facebook account whose owner I was able to contact and confirm that they were blocked from Durango Police for dubious reasons.

Broadly, the blocked list raises the question of whether the account of Natan Rebelde and the 39 other users had their First Amendment (U.S. Constitution) rights violated in the process.

Specifically, was Natan Rebelde blocked due to the content of their speech, I asked the person?

“I assume so, though it was never explained,” the person said. “I just noticed once day that I could no longer tag the page, then I noticed it was gone when trying
to visit the url, while others could clearly still see the page, and I found that I could even see it from some pages I admin. But yes I assume they got annoyed by my constant tagging and location setting in any posts critical of the police (more in general than their specific department). I have also been banned from or blocked by my city’s local municipal government page.”

I also requested a record of all of the people who had been blocked from the City of Durango’s Facebook page. In response they said that there were not any accounts blocked.

The City of Durango has reviewed the above Open Records Request.  No documents responsive to your request exist. The City of Durango Facebook page does not have any blocked users.

After I requested a record of all the people who had been blocked from the City of Durango’s  Facebook page, something interesting happened for Natan Rebelde.

“It also appears that I am no longer blacklisted by the city and can see the municipal page once again, possibly as a result of your inquiry,” they said.

At the same time, Natan Rebelde still appears to be blocked by the Durango Police Facebook page.

“They can block a profile from commenting without denying them access to view the page entirely, which is some sort of higher level ban,” they said. “I cannot see the page at all any more.”

A person critical of police who was blocked by a municipality sued and won

Previous rulings in federal court have found that blocking people because of the content of their speech or their lack of press credentials amounts to unlawful discrimination.

For instance, in Sgaggio vs. De Young, the court found that Delbert Sgaggio’s First Amendment rights were violated when his comments were deleted from the City of Woodland Park’s Facebook page.

Basically, city officials deleted his comments because they were obscene and because Sgaggio lacked any kind of media credentials.

After many of the claims in Sgaggio’s civil rights complaint were originally denied by a Magistrate Judge, an outside unrelated organization got involved. The Firearms Policy Coalition filed a  Brief Amicus Curiae in Support of Plaintiff’s Objections to the Magistrate Judge’s Recommendation.

Upon review, Chief Judge Philip Brimmer overturned the magistrate judges recommendations and supported the objections of plaintiff Sgaggio.

For example, Brimmer found that the City of Woodlands Park’s policy prohibiting profanity on its page did not serve a narrowly-tailored government interest.

“Regardless of whether protecting children from profanity or offensive language is a compelling government interest, defendants have not shown that the policy — which was not produced or excerpted in defendants’ summary judgment motion or in response to plaintiff’s objection — is narrowly tailored to serve this interest. There is no indication which words the policy would delete or flag in a comment or post or why the non-obscene words plaintiff used are barred under the policies. Moreover, the undisputed facts indicate that plaintiff’s post “[a]sk the city how they treat sick kids” was also removed, apparently pursuant to the social media policy. See Docket No. 18 at 4, ¶¶ 10-11; Docket No. 24 at 3, ¶¶ 10-12. Def endants have not shown that they are entitled to summary judgment, and the Court therefore rejects this portion of the recommendation and sustains plaintiff’s objection on his free speech claim.”

Additionally, Judge Brimmer also found that blocking Sgaggio from the city’s Facebook page violated his First Amendment Free Press Rights.

“On de novo review, the Court rejects the recommendation because the accuracy of plaintiff’s posts is irrelevant, and First Amendment free press protection does not require journalistic experience and expertise, research, professional degrees, or licenses. As FPC notes, the Tenth Circuit has explained that “First [A]mendment protection should not depend on whether the criticism is in the form of speech by a private individual or publication by the institutional press,” and “[t]o withhold the protections of the first amendment from nonmedia participants in the political process would be to stand the amendment on its head without the slightest justification.” Docket No. 27 at 7 (quoting Garcia v. Bd. of Educ. of Socorro Consol. Sch. Dist., 777 F.2d 1403, 1410 (10th Cir. 1985)); Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U.S. 75, 85 (1966) (“Criticism of government is at the very center of the constitutionally protected area of free discussion. Criticism of those responsible for government operations must be free, lest criticism of government itself be penalized.”)).”