When can American officials block citizens on social media?

DONALD TRUMPX repeatedly tested the bounds of America’s Constitution during his four years in the White House. One of his misadventures— from viewing or interacting with his posts on Twitter, the site since rebranded as —led to a federal appeals-court ruling that his cold shoulder had violated the First Amendment. But before the could review that decision, the 2020 election and became moot.On October 31st two cases not involving the 45th president teed up the same question for the justices: when does an official’s use of a personal social-media account become “state action” and thus subject to constitutional limits? Three hours of debate revealed the difficulty of distinguishing between personal use of Facebook and posts that are, in the terms of a precedent from 1982, “fairly attributable to the state”.