Morgan v. Bevin, 298 F. Supp. 3d 1003

Governor Matt Bevin maintained official Twitter and Facebook accounts managed by his office to communicate his policies and solicit feedback on topics he chose to address.
Plaintiffs Drew Morgan and Mary Hargis were blocked by Bevin from his Twitter and Facebook pages after posting criticisms; they allege First Amendment violations and seek declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Bevin's pages were configured so only he/posts by his office appear on the timeline; the public could only comment on his posts, subject to automatic profanity/keyword filters and manual moderation; repeat off-topic or abusive commenters could be blocked.
Twitter and Facebook are privately owned platforms with built-in moderation tools (mute, block, hide, delete, report) and technical workarounds exist (viewing as unregistered user, creating new accounts/pages).
Plaintiffs argued the accounts functioned as public fora and blocking constituted unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination; Bevin argued his accounts were his own speech (or limited fora) and he need not listen to or host all viewpoints.
The district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, finding Plaintiffs unlikely to succeed on the merits because the Governor’s social-media accounts constituted his own (government) speech or personal speech and he had no constitutional obligation to listen to or host critics on those private platforms.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether forum-analysis applies to an elected official's social-media accounts	Bevin’s pages are public or designated fora; blocking critics is viewpoint discrimination	Accounts are privately hosted and configured by Bevin; forum analysis is inappropriate	Forum-analysis not applied; accounts treated as the Governor’s own speech or private channels
Whether blocking plaintiffs from Bevin’s accounts violated the First Amendment	Blocking prevented Plaintiffs from participating in public political discourse on official pages	No constitutional right to a government audience; no obligation to listen or respond	No First Amendment violation; Plaintiffs unlikely to succeed on the merits
Whether Plaintiffs are entitled to a preliminary injunction restoring access	Blocking causes irreparable harm to political speech and public participation	Plaintiffs have not shown likely success on the merits or irreparable harm	Motion for preliminary injunction denied—no irreparable harm shown absent likelihood of success
Whether public interest or harm to others favors injunctive relief	Public interest favors open access to officials’ communications	Injunction could create operational burdens and is not shown necessary; alternatives (other forums, polls) exist	Public interest does not outweigh lack of likelihood of success; injunction not warranted

Minn. State Bd. for Cmty. Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984) (no constitutional right to a government audience; government need not listen or respond)
Walker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2239 (2015) (government may speak and control its own message)
Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009) (forum analysis inappropriate where speech is government speech and forcing open forum would effectively close it)
Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788 (1985) (forum-analysis prerequisites and limits on public forum doctrine)
Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017) (caution in applying First Amendment principles to social media; digital context is novel)
Overstreet v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Gov't, 305 F.3d 566 (6th Cir. 2002) (preliminary injunction standards)
In re Delorean Motor Co., 755 F.2d 1223 (6th Cir. 1985) (injunction may issue on serious questions and balancing of harms)
Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Wis. Sys. v. Southworth, 529 U.S. 217 (2000) (when government speaks/allocates funds, political process provides primary accountability)