Self-protection or censorship? Utah lawmakers are blocking people on social media

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Aaron Hansen, a liberal-leaning Cedar City resident and avid Twitter user, enjoys taking occasional jabs at the state’s conservative politicians on social media.

He says he tries to keep it aboveboard, though, and aims to attack policies without getting too personal. To his knowledge, he’s only been blocked by one Utah official: state Sen. Todd Weiler, who blocked Hansen after he posted a Twitter poll about whether Weiler should block people.

While Hansen found that particular instance funny, he says he has real concerns about Utah’s elected officials silencing naysayers on social platforms by blocking them, or preventing them from engaging with or viewing the lawmaker’s account.

“If they’re talking about policies, that’s where they’re getting a lot of their input,” he said. “People should be able to comment on what they’re saying … so they can get a better idea as to what’s going through the politician’s head when they make decisions that affect everybody.”

Recently, a Twitter user with a similar objection began circulating a survey asking people if a Utah official had ever blocked them. More than a dozen respondents posted screenshots on the thread showing that Weiler, Rep. Jordan Teuscher and others had cut them off.

These users complained that officials in Utah are using the block button to silence dissent on their feeds — a practice the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah says can be unconstitutional, in certain cases.

On the other hand, some elected officials, such as Weiler, say blocking can be a way of protecting themselves from rising levels of political toxicity and online harassment.

“I understand there’s a certain element of being a punching bag,” Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said. “I’m an elected official, so if you’re mad about masks or COVID or something, you can come and kick me online. And some of that, I think, is OK. But some of it also crosses the line, in my opinion.”

Though he does discuss state-level policies online, Weiler sees his Twitter page as more of a personal, than an official, account. He communicates with his constituents primarily on Facebook, during town halls, through email and by publicizing his personal cellphone, he says.

When it comes to official social media channels, legislators say they don’t have many options in responding to harassment.

“Other than just ignore it and let it play out or blocking people, those are really the only tools,” said Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost, D-Salt Lake City, who added that she doesn’t block users from her official account. “And they’re not great tools.”

‘Press the mute button’

The First Amendment gives Americans the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances” — even on social media, the ACLU of Utah notes.

So in certain cases, blocking someone can interfere with that person’s constitutionally protected ability to voice opinions to elected officials, says Jason Stevenson, spokesperson for the civil liberties group.

For instance, federal courts have held that former President Donald Trump erred in blocking critics on Twitter, with judges concluding the account was not simply a personal outlet because it was routinely used to make official government statements.

The issue has also been debated in Utah, with a Salt Lake City resident in 2018 suing then-Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, Attorney General Sean Reyes and state lawmakers for allegedly blocking him and deleting his comments on social media. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, court records show.

To help people discern whether an elected official is violating their constitutional rights on social media, the ACLU of Utah has created a toolkit and flowchart that summarizes some of the legal issues at play. For example, if an elected leader’s account is campaign-related, it likely wouldn’t count as an official government page, according to the group’s guidance.

Other important questions are whether the page mentions the official’s government position, whether there’s a posted comment policy and whether the account owner enforces that policy consistently, Stevenson said.

Officials are allowed to screen out harassment or spam, even on their government accounts, but they shouldn’t be simply silencing dissent, he said.

“If elected officials could just press the mute button all the time and not listen to their constituents, then we’re really not going to have an effective democracy,” Stevenson said.

Generally, people who think they’ve been unfairly blocked should appeal directly to the official in question, he said. That works in most cases, Stevenson said. If it doesn’t, people can also contact the ACLU of Utah with their concerns.

Dan McClellan, a Herriman resident who’s active on Twitter, said Teuscher recently blocked him on Twitter for repeatedly raising questions about the origins of the lawmaker’s controversial curriculum transparency bill.

The now-abandoned legislation, which would’ve required teachers to post their class syllabuses and a list of learning materials online for parents to inspect, is similar to model bills brought forward by conservative organizations. Teuscher says he designed his bill last year in collaboration with educators and students, though he acknowledged considering existing laws in other states.

McClellan reached out to Teuscher on Facebook after the lawmaker blocked him on Twitter.

“I blocked you on Twitter as you seem to be more interested in trolling than actually having substantive policy discussions,” Teuscher wrote in a Facebook response. “You are not a constituent of mine, I don’t owe you any explanations, and quite honestly, I don’t have time to respond to your conspiracy theories.”

Teuscher, who argues his Twitter and Facebook pages are more campaign-related than official communication channels, says he rarely uses the block option but has resorted to it when he wants to control the spread of misinformation.

“I have very, very few people that I’ve blocked, but they’re on both sides of the aisle,” the South Jordan Republican said. “There are like crazy, far-right-wingers that have their own U.N. conspiracy theories that I don’t want perpetuated that I blocked. And then people like Dan that are more combative and spouting stuff on the left.”

McClellan has said he’s not spreading misinformation and is simply asking tough questions.

To him, the online spat with Teuscher is “small potatoes” compared to the bills and policies that Utah lawmakers are advancing. But he does see it as part of the Legislature’s general resistance to transparency.

“As soon as we ask difficult questions, they will dodge or disengage, whether that’s just by not responding anymore or by blocking,” said McClellan, who unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for state Senate several years ago. “I think that’s just a symptom of a very secretive, very covert way of engaging the public and working on legislation.”

‘Damaging language’

Weiler, an attorney, said he’s followed the court cases on elected officials and social media and believes the way he manages his Twitter account complies with the rulings.

He created his Twitter profile in 2009, before he became a state official and while he was serving as a leader in the Utah GOP, and envisioned it as a way to discuss party politics online. Since then, he’s become among the most visible and polarizing Twitter personas in the Legislature, openly admitting he intentionally needles people with some of his posts.

“Most of my tweets are tongue-in-cheek, and I get accused of being caustic and rude and bombastic. I rarely am,” he said in his legislative office, where a Twitter bird figurine perches on a shelf. “I try not to take myself very seriously, and I don’t think I do. Twitter, it’s really a game for me, and sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s not.”

He’ll block people who direct profanity at him, he said, or seem to respond with outrage whenever he posts something. The online vitriol has increased in recent years, during the Trump administration and pandemic, he said.

The Utah Department of Public Safety says lawmakers have reported a sharp rise in threats toward them or their family members in recent years, prompting security upgrades at the state Capitol.

And Susan Madsen, director of Utah State University’s Utah Women and Leadership Project, said she’s concerned about online abuse discouraging women from pursuing elected office in a state that already suffers from a lack of female representation. While online trolls and harassers affect everyone, they target prominent women, especially women of color, differently than they do men in power, she said.

“The research is very clear nationally and globally that women have safety issues that often men don’t,” she said. “So when there’s threats ... on social media, women take those often more seriously.”

The Utah Women and Leadership Project recently surveyed 118 current and former female officeholders and found that criticism, misinformation and personal attacks constituted one of the primary barriers for women in elected positions.

Women reported facing false accusations about drug use, child abandonment and having inappropriate relationships with developers, according to the report. Dailey-Provost said some of her colleagues have even received death threats.

However, following the 2018 lawsuit against state leaders, legislative attorneys generally discourage lawmakers from blocking people on their official accounts, though they don’t prohibit it.

Rep. Karen Kwan says she doesn’t feel comfortable barring users from her official social media channels, but her Facebook page does include a disclaimer that she wants to foster “respectful dialogue” and reserves the right to remove posts with profanity, personal insults, ethnic or racial slurs or that are harassing or defamatory. She also warns that she might bar those who violate the rules from posting on her page.

Because of the blurry line between harassment and free speech, her practice is to document and report comments that seem bullying or inappropriate rather than shutting these users down, she said. But the negative impacts of these online attacks are real, Kwan continued, and lawmakers still have a distance to go in figuring out how to respond to them.

“My colleagues on both sides of the aisles are receiving these kinds of threats, and it’s unacceptable,” the Taylorsville Democrat said. “When we talk about civil dialogue, that’s exactly what we want. We want to talk about policy, we want to talk about our opinions, we want to be able to hear people’s voices. And it’s hard to sift through the intent when there’s such damaging language.”

Weiler is comfortable continuing to block people on Twitter, in part because he doesn’t reference his Senate title in his bio and doesn’t view his account as an official government page. Many of his tweets are about religion, national politics and sports, he added.

If the courts ever tell him otherwise, he says, he might just “exit Twitter” altogether.