Is the list of Twitter accounts an elected official has blocked from their personal feed a public record under Florida's Sunshine Law?

Plain-English summary

The City of Gainesville's attorney asked the AG's office whether the list of accounts an elected official had blocked from their personal Twitter feed was a public record under section 119.011(12), Florida Statutes. Senior Assistant Attorney General Gerry Hammond declined to answer because the question presented "mixed questions of law and fact" the office could not resolve through a formal opinion. Whether the block list was a public record depended on whether the tweets that produced the blocks were themselves made in connection with the discharge of municipal duty, and that determination required factual development the AG's office did not do.

Hammond did offer informal commentary. He pointed Gainesville to two cases that framed the analysis. In Butler v. City of Hallandale Beach, 68 So. 3d 278 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), a personal email sent by a mayor was held not to be a public record because it was not sent in connection with the mayor's official duty. In State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 2003), the Florida Supreme Court ruled that private documents do not become public records simply by being stored on government computers. The implication for Gainesville: if the official's tweets were essentially personal speech that happened to use Twitter, the block list followed the tweets out of Chapter 119's reach. If the tweets were official communications using Twitter as the medium, both the tweets and the block list could be public records subject to inspection and copying.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2016. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

The federal Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump litigation (2nd Cir. 2019) and similar state cases have since pushed the law toward treating an elected official's social-media accounts that are used for governance as state action, with corresponding access rights for the public. Florida public records law has not been formally amended on this point, but litigation and DOJ guidance after 2017 have moved the practical answer further toward the "public record" side for accounts used in official capacity. Confirm current Florida case law before applying this 2016 informal opinion.

Common questions

Q: Why couldn't the AG issue a formal opinion?
A: The AG's office gives formal opinions on questions of state law, not on questions that turn on facts about specific officials' specific tweets. Whether tweets are public records depends on what the official was tweeting about, in what capacity, on what kind of account, with what kind of public participation. Those are factual questions for the agency, the courts, or the parties to resolve.

Q: What did Butler v. City of Hallandale Beach actually hold?
A: The Fourth District Court of Appeal held that a personal email a mayor sent was not a public record under Chapter 119 because it was not made or received in connection with the discharge of any municipal duty. The case is a useful boundary marker: the form of the communication (an email account, a Twitter handle) is not what determines public-records status. The substance is.

Q: What about State v. City of Clearwater?
A: The Florida Supreme Court held that private documents stored on government computers do not become public records solely because they were placed on agency-owned hardware. The case stands for the proposition that public-records status is about whether the document was made or received in connection with agency business, not about who owns the storage medium.

Q: How does the test work for a Twitter block list?
A: The informal opinion sketched a two-step test. First, are the tweets the official is sending public records? That requires looking at content, context, account ownership, and whether the official is communicating in an official or personal capacity. Second, if the tweets are public records, then a list of accounts blocked from interacting with those tweets, prepared by the official as part of managing the same conversation, could well be a public record too.

Q: Did the opinion say anything about personal versus official Twitter accounts?
A: The opinion did not draw the line between accounts. It left the question abstract, pointing to the case law and noting that the fact-specific analysis would have to be done by the official, the city, and ultimately a court if challenged.

Q: Can a Florida official block constituents without legal consequence?
A: This opinion does not answer that. Even if the block list is not a public record under Chapter 119, blocking constituents from a government-used account can raise separate First Amendment retaliation issues under later federal case law. The opinion stayed inside the Chapter 119 question.

Background and statutory framework

Florida's Public Records Law, Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, is one of the broadest open-records regimes in the country. Section 119.011(12) defines "public records" to include "all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software, or other material, regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency." The "regardless of the physical form" language was added in part to cover the digital era.

The 1980 Florida Supreme Court decision Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid & Assoc., Inc. supplied the practical test: a record is "public" if it is made or received in connection with official business and is used to perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge. Tweets, emails, text messages, and social-media metadata can all qualify, but the form alone does not create public-records status. The Butler and Clearwater cases applied that test to specific media (personal email and computer-stored private documents) and reached the same point: form does not control, substance does.

A "block list" is metadata about communications. The AG's office treated it the same way it would treat any other piece of communication-related data: a derivative of the underlying tweets, with status to be analyzed alongside them. If the tweets were public records, the block list was almost certainly one too. If the tweets were personal speech, the block list followed.

Citations and references

Statutes:

• § 119.011(12), Fla. Stat. (definition of public records)
• Chapter 119, Fla. Stat. (Public Records)

Cases:

• Butler v. City of Hallandale Beach, 68 So. 3d 278 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011) (personal email not a public record)
• State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 2003) (private documents on government computer not public records by storage alone)
• Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid & Assoc., Inc., 379 So. 2d 633 (Fla. 1980) (test for public-records status)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.myfloridalegal.com/ag-opinions/public-records-twitter
• Original PDF: https://www.myfloridalegal.com/print/pdf/node/1516

Original opinion text

Ms. Nicolle Shalley, City Attorney

City of Gainesville

Office of the City Attorney

Post Office Box 490, Station 46

Gainesville, Florida 32627

Dear Ms. Shalley:

On behalf of the City of Gainesville and its elected officials, you have requested assistance in determining whether a list or record of accounts which have been blocked from posting to or accessing an elected official's personal Twitter feed is a public record as defined in section 119.011(12), Florida Statutes, and therefore subject to public inspection and copying. Attorney General Bondi has asked me to respond to your letter.

In the absence of a statutory exemption, Florida's Public Records Law provides a right of access that applies to all materials made or received by an agency in connection with the transaction of official business which are used to perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge.[1] However, the question presented in your request involves mixed questions of law and fact that this office cannot resolve.

A determination of whether the list of blocked accounts is a public record requires resolution of the question of whether the "tweets" which resulted in the blocked accounts, were public records. If the "tweets" the public official is sending are public records, then a list of blocked accounts, prepared in connection with those public records "tweets," could well be determined by a court to be a public record.

Several recent public records cases may be helpful to you and to the public official involved in determining whether these records are public records within the scope of Florida's Public Records Law. See, e.g., Butler v. City of Hallandale Beach, 68 So. 3d 278 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), rehearing denied (personal email sent by the mayor was not sent in connection with the discharge of any municipal duty and therefore was not a public record under Chapter 119); and State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So. 2d 149 (Fla. 2003) (private documents stored in government computers cannot be deemed public records solely by virtue of their placement on an agency-owned computer).

I trust that these informal comments will be helpful to you in advising your client.

Sincerely,

Gerry Hammond

Senior Assistant Attorney General

GH/tsh

[1] See, e.g., Shevin v. Byron, Harless, Schaffer, Reid & Assoc., Inc., 379 So. 2d 633 at 640 (Fla. 1980).