HENRY COUNTY, Indiana — The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana is suing Henry County Sheriff John Sproles.
The ACLU is accusing the sheriff of blocking a user and deleting a Facebook comment critical of the sheriff.
The suit, filed on behalf of Kristopher Bilbrey, claims Sproles would delete posts critical of him while allowing favorable comments. The suit claims this was a violation of the First Amendment.
“The interactive portion of a public official’s Facebook page is considered a public forum, thus public officials cannot block constituents from commenting because of the opinions they hold,” said Gavin M. Rose, senior attorney for the ACLU of Indiana.
According to the suit, Bilbrey is a political commentator and hosts podcasts. Bilbrey said the sheriff had posted part of a videos from one of Bilbrey's podcasts. The suit claims Bilbrey commented on the post that the video was being republished without attribution and in a way that it appeared to support a position, which the full video did not.
Within an hour of Bilbrey's comment, the suit claims the comment was removed and Bilbrey was blocked from the sheriff's department page.
