WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

on Friday threw out a pair of judicial decisions involving

whether public officials can block critics on social media

without violating constitutional protections for free speech.

The justices vacated rulings by lower courts in two cases -

one from California and another from Michigan - involving

lawsuits brought under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment

by people who were blocked after posting criticisms on the

social media accounts of local officials. The justices directed

the lower courts to reconsider the matter.

At issue in the legal fight was whether the officials, in

blocking their critics, were acting in a governmental capacity.

The First Amendment's protections for free speech generally

constrain government actors, not private individuals.

Blocking users is a function often employed on social media

to stifle critics. The Supreme Court previously confronted the

issue in 2021 in litigation over former President Donald Trump's

effort to block critics on X, called Twitter at the time, but

failed to decide the matter by deeming the case moot after he

left office.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases in October.

The first case involved two public school board trustees

from the California city of Poway who appealed a lower court's

ruling in favor of parents who sued them after being blocked

from the accounts of the officials on X and Facebook, which is

owned by Meta Platforms ( META ).

The second case involved a Michigan man's appeal after a

lower court ruled against his lawsuit challenging a Port Huron

city official who blocked him on Facebook.

President Joe Biden's administration had sided with the

officials in both cases. Free speech advocacy groups urged the

justices to back the plaintiffs.

The California case involved Michelle O'Connor-Ratcliff and

T.J. Zane, elected trustees of the Poway Unified School

District. They blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, the

parents of three students at district schools, after the couple

made hundreds of critical posts on issues including race and

school finances.

Zane and O'Connor-Ratcliff both had public Facebook pages

identifying them as government officials. The parents sued

O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane in 2017, arguing that their free

speech rights under the First Amendment were violated.

A federal judge in California ruled that the parents' First

Amendment rights were violated and the San Francisco-based 9th

U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, ruling that Zane and

O'Connor-Ratcliff had presented their social media accounts as

"channels of communication with the public" about school board

business.

"When state actors enter that virtual world and invoke their

government status to create a forum for such expression," the

9th Circuit wrote, "the First Amendment enters with them."

In the Michigan case, Port Huron resident Kevin Lindke sued

in 2020 after City Manager James Freed blocked him from his

public Facebook page following critical posts related to the

COVID-19 pandemic. Lindke accused Freed of violating his First

Amendment rights. Freed's account also was a public Facebook

page identifying him as a public figure.

A federal judge ruled in favor of Freed in 2021 and the

Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year

agreed. The 6th Circuit found that Freed's blocking of Lindke

did not constitute an official act.

The justices also are expected to issue rulings by the end

of June in other important cases involving speech on social

media. One involves a challenge to Republican-backed state laws

limiting the ability of social media platforms to remove or

moderate content deemed objectionable or misinformation. Another

involves a bid to prevent the Biden administration from

encouraging such content moderation.