## Facts

- The University of Wisconsin–Madison operated official Instagram and Facebook accounts and permitted public comments.
- The university maintained a written moderation policy allowing removal or hiding of comments deemed, among other things, threatening, profane, off-topic, commercial, or otherwise injurious or illegal.
- Social-media managers exercised discretion to hide or remove comments and used a keyword filter that automatically hid comments containing selected terms unless approved by a moderator.
- Filtered terms included profanity/harassment-related words and phrases and terms associated with animal-testing criticism (as well as some political terms).
- Madeline Krasno, a university graduate and former primate-lab worker, posted comments on several university social-media posts in 2020 criticizing the university’s primate research and urging it to end such research.
- The university hid Krasno’s Instagram comments and temporarily restricted her account so her future comments were automatically hidden unless approved; the university also deleted one of her Facebook comments.
- Krasno alleged the actions were viewpoint-based censorship of animal-rights criticism; the university asserted it enforced an off-topic rule to keep comment threads focused on the subject of each post.
- Krasno sued for declaratory and injunctive relief and nominal damages under the First Amendment; both sides moved for summary judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether the university’s enforcement of an “off-topic” moderation rule (including keyword filters and account restrictions) was a reasonable and viewpoint-neutral limitation consistent with the First Amendment.
2. Whether the Eleventh Amendment barred official-capacity claims seeking retrospective relief for past hiding/deleting of comments and past account restrictions.
3. Whether Krasno had standing to seek prospective injunctive relief against continued use of keyword filters and future moderation practices.
4. Whether individual officials were entitled to qualified immunity for their moderation decisions.
5. Whether the moderation actions violated the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

## Decision

- Granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment and denied Krasno’s motion.
- Held the off-topic moderation rule and its application were reasonable and viewpoint-neutral under forum analysis and did not violate the First Amendment.
- Held the Eleventh Amendment barred official-capacity claims for retrospective relief based on completed past moderation actions.
- Held Krasno lacked standing to pursue an injunction against future use of keyword filters and future moderation because she did not show a real and immediate threat of future injury.
- Held the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because the relevant First Amendment limits on university-run social-media moderation were not clearly established.
- Rejected the Petition Clause claim.

## Legal Principles

- In government-controlled interactive spaces treated as designated or limited public forums, restrictions may be upheld if they are reasonable in light of the forum’s purpose and viewpoint neutral.
- A rule distinguishing on-topic from off-topic speech may be content-based yet permissible if applied without discriminating among viewpoints.
- The Eleventh Amendment generally bars retrospective relief against state officials in their official capacities; prospective relief requires an ongoing or imminent violation.
- Article III standing for injunctive relief requires a real and immediate likelihood of future injury, not only past harm.
- Qualified immunity shields officials from damages unless existing precedent clearly establishes the unlawfulness of the challenged conduct.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the university’s social-media moderation decisions as permissible on-topic management rather than viewpoint discrimination, dismissed official-capacity claims for past actions under sovereign immunity, found no standing for forward-looking injunctive relief, and granted qualified immunity to individual officials.


Krasno v. Mnookin, No. 21-cv-79-slc, 2022 WL 16635246 (W.D. Wis. Nov. 2, 2022)