A federal judge has ordered a California sheriff to allow Black Lives Matter activists to once again access his Facebook page after he blocked them for posting critical comments.

U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley of the Eastern District of California granted a preliminary injunction to Tanya Faison and Sonia Lewis requiring Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones to "unban" them from his public figure Facebook page and no longer prohibit their participation.

On Friday, Nunley ruled that the page is a public forum and Jones violated the Black Lives Matter leaders' First Amendment rights when he blocked them in his capacity as a state actor. The judge said the sheriff's assertions that the dulling of the page as a marketing tool for his campaign pales in comparison to the silencing of public discourse.

"It is unclear how allowing free speech on defendant's Facebook page will significantly harm a future campaign, especially when—as he points out—he does allow other critical comments to remain on the page," he wrote. "With respect to defendant's assertion that he will shut down the page if the court grants the injunction, such harm would be self-inflicted. In any event, the harm of shutting down a Facebook page is far less than the harm of losing fiercely-protected First Amendment rights."

The Sacramento County Sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday afternoon.

Jones labels himself as a public figure and not a government official on the page. However, the court found that the sheriff "cannot escape his role as a government official simply by calling himself a public figure." He cited the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's 2019 opinion deciding President Donald Trump's active Twitter account is a public forum and blocking users is a violation of the First Amendment.

"Like President Trump in Knight, defendant's Facebook page bore 'all the trappings' of his state office," he wrote. "For example, defendant's profile photograph shows him in a law enforcement uniform, his banner photograph across the top of the page is a Sacramento County Sheriff's vehicle, and Defendant uses his official title on the page."

Jones argued that page administrators exercised editorial control when they cleaned up profane comments, limited who can make direct posts, hid and deleted comments and blocked certain accounts, according to the opinion.

Nunley saw it differently.

"But the fact that defendant banned other users from the page does not diminish its status as a public forum. To the contrary, such censorship only worsens the court's concerns," he said. The judge pointed out that "members of the public did post about matters of public concern—oftentimes in response to defendant's own posts about Sheriff's Department issues—and defendant repeatedly replied to those discussions."

On about half a dozen occasions, Jones posted about an incident involving deputies who fatally shot a 32-year-old black man named Mikel McIntyre in 2017. Jones had called for his Facebook followers to take action in resistance to calls for outside oversight of the Sheriff's Department following the shooting. Jones had said there would be no irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction, because Faison and Lewis could share their critical comments on other channels.

Yet, the court ruled that the public interest in free political speech and balance of equity tips sharply in the organizers' favor.

"Regardless of plaintiffs' ability to get their message out elsewhere, plaintiffs' inability to post on defendant's Facebook page is a burden on their speech," Nunley said. "Burdens to speech run afoul of the First Amendment. Plaintiffs' harm is multiplied by the fact that the ban prevents Plaintiffs from engaging in political speech in an ongoing controversy."

Faison and Lewis are represented by Sean Riordan of the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and John Heller and Si Eun Amber Lee of Rogers Joseph O'Donnell in San Francisco.

"Free speech must be protected from government censorship on social media," Riordan said in an email. "We are pleased that the court recognized that all of Sheriff Jones' constituents should be allowed to respond and participate in public debate regardless of their viewpoints or identity. Sheriff Jones' decision to ban Black Lives Matter leaders was an unconstitutional attempt to silence important conversations about police violence, racial bias, and accountability."

Jones' attorneys, Daniel Spradlin and James Hardy Eggart of Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart in Costa Mesa, California, also did not respond to a request for comment.