Willmeng v. City of Thornton

Four days after two Colorado residents filed a lawsuit alleging that the City of Thornton, Colorado, and its mayor pro tem violated their First Amendment rights by barring them from posting about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing on the mayor’s official Facebook page, the parties filed a stipulation in which the mayor agreed to unblock the defendants and to refrain from blocking individuals and from deleting comments from the Facebook page during the pendency of the lawsuit. The parties agreed that comments and postings controlled by the plaintiffs “must not contain true threats and/or obscenity.”

Two Colorado residents filed a lawsuit alleging that the City of Thornton, Colorado, and its mayor pro tem violated their First Amendment rights by barring them from posting about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing on the mayor’s official Facebook page. The plaintiffs had posted comments on the Facebook page that included assertions about carbon emissions and public health effects associated with oil combustion; the comments were allegedly deleted and the plaintiffs banned from future commenting. The plaintiffs asserted First Amendment claims for violations of free speech rights and the right to petition the government and for retaliation.