The North Carolina National Guard settled a federal lawsuit with a former guardsman who alleged the service violated his First Amendment rights by blocking him on Facebook for criticizing its leadership.
Under the settlement agreement, NCNG agreed to restore Timothy Stanhope’s access to its Facebook page and make reasonable efforts to unhide his comments.
The agreement also requires the Guard to revise its Facebook moderation policy. It can no longer block users or remove, hide or filter comments simply because they are deemed “inappropriate.”
However, comments will still be subject to Facebook’s community standards, and each side agreed to pay its own legal fees and court costs.
Michelle Scott, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, which represented Stanhope, called the settlement a victory for free speech.
“When a government agency opens an official page for public comment, it cannot treat that page as a one-way bulletin board where praise is welcome but criticism is censored,” Scott said. “Government officials don’t get to invite public comment and then censor the citizens who take them up on their invitation.”
In a statement about the lawsuit, CIR said the case was about more than “one person or one post.” Instead, it said, the lawsuit was about protecting the public’s right to criticize the government in online public forums.
According to the complaint filed in March 2025, Stanhope was blocked from NCNG’s Facebook page after years of commenting on its posts.
Although superior officers had confronted him about his comments while he was still serving, the Guard did not block him until after he retired in 2023.
The complaint said Stanhope frequently criticized what he viewed as mismanagement by Guard leaders.
In 2019, he commented, “so when do we get the results from the leader[’]s test?” in response to a post about a combat fitness test.
In 2021, he criticized what he described as the Guard’s “ill-conceived and hastily planned” deployment to Washington, D.C., following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In 2023, he responded to a post announcing an officer’s promotion by sharing the officer’s mugshot from a previous drunken driving arrest along with a news article about the incident.
The complaint also cited several posts Stanhope made on his own Facebook page that tagged NCNG, making them visible on the Guard’s page.
In a statement, Stanhope said the settlement affirms that “constitutional rights are not optional.”
“The right to speak freely includes the right to criticize the government, and that right doesn’t disappear when the conversation moves online,” he said. “Officials don’t get to pick and choose which opinions are allowed. I’m glad the Guard finally agrees.”
Daniel Terrill is a contributor to Military Times. He’s been reporting on military issues, the gun industry, and the outdoors for nearly two decades. Although writing is his passion, he’s been a Marine, police officer, and, perhaps the most dangerous job of his career, a substitute teacher.
Read the full article here