Can I sue a government agency for removing Facebook comments?

Question

According to lawyers.com:

“Even if a social media site is maintained as an official government tool, it may not be a public forum for purposes of free speech. For instance, government agencies don’t have to let citizens voice their opinions on official websites that are meant only to pass on information. But the picture changes once public agencies or officials set up sites or accounts that allow people to post comments and voice their opinions freely. Although there may be reasonable restrictions on things like vulgarity or spam, the officials may not delete comments or block users just because they don’t like the opinions being expressed—what’s known as “viewpoint discrimination.”‘

There is a certain Facebook page that is ran by a bureaucracy of the federal government, and I have several screenshots proving they remove, or hide, hundreds of comments on every post.

Can I sue this government agency for removing Facebook comments?

Answer 1

As I understand it, you can pretty much sue anybody for anything. The question, of course, is would you win the suit?

All the lawyers here can correct me, but I believe in order to win, you would have to

1. Show standing, that is, they're your comments and not someone else's
2. Show that it's a deliberate act, and not just someone accidentally clicked the wrong checkbox.
3. Show that it was an act by the agency and not by Facebook, for example.
4. Show that you've been singled out for your viewpoint (they allow some people's comments)
5. Show that there is no other reason to delete your comments (they're obscene, or advocate for an illegal act, for example).

I'm probably missing something else.

The real question is, even if you could demonstrate all these things, would it be worth it? You may spend $1,000's and you might not recover your legal fees. The case might take years.

Answer 2

In theory, you can. An example is the case of Duhamel & DuBois v. Baldelli-Hunt. You can read the complaint, to see the relevant legal points. In this case, defendant blocked plaintiffs' access to the mayor's Facebook page, but deleting comments is an equally valid trigger. The relevant consideration is that the official deprived plaintiffs of their right to speak in a public forum as well as their right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was the government official, not Facebook; it was based on viewpoint, not e.g. obscenity. The web page was used as a public forum (it was not the mayor's private account): comments were enabled.