For the remaining weeks he’ll be in office, Gov. Paul LePage has agreed to stop blocking constituents who disagree with him from his Facebook page as part of a settlement to a federal lawsuit.
Brought by the ACLU of Maine on behalf of the co-founders of the progressive grassroots group “Suit Up Maine,” the lawsuit alleged that Karin Leuthy of Camden and Kelli Whitlock Burton of Waldoboro were banned from the “Paul LePage, Maine’s Governor” Facebook page after posting comments criticizing the governor.
The women alleged that having their comments deleted violated their rights to free speech and amounted to unlawful censorship.
“This relief is everything that the plaintiffs asked for in the lawsuit and it’s also a step forward in the right direction to protecting free speech in the digital age,” says Emma Bond, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Maine.
She says the case could serve as a bellwether for other government officials in similar cases.
“There are numerous cases at different stages in federal courts across the country and what this case does is signal to other elected officials that the first amendment apply online. Government officials can’t use their official position to censor people on social media,” Bond says.
Both Leuthy and Burton have had their posting privileges restored to the Facebook account, which the governor says originated as a campaign page that neither he nor any other state employees operate.
Administrators of the page have since acknowledged that some users may have been confused and mistakenly believed that it was run by state government staffers.
Originally published Dec. 10, 2018 at 4:40 p.m. ET.
