The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will consider whether the First Amendment prohibits a public official from blocking constituents from personal social media accounts when those accounts are used to communicate with the public.

The court took two cases for the term that begins in October to decide a digital-age issue that has been active in lower courts. Two years ago, the justices dismissed a similar challenge to President Donald Trump’s efforts to block critics on Twitter, after the former president lost reelection and his Twitter account was suspended.

The court’s decision will have implications nationwide for how public officials use social media accounts, which according to many lower courts function as public bulletin boards for officials and inform constituents about the business of government.

One case accepted by the justices involves two members of a Southern California school board, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane. Both of them blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, frequent critics and posters on their social media accounts.

The other involves James Freed, the city manager of Port Huron, Mich., who blocked city resident Kevin Lindke from his personal Facebook page.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held that Freed did not violate Lindke’s rights by blocking access to Freed’s Facebook page, after Lindke was critical of the city’s pandemic restrictions. The court said Freed was acting in a personal capacity.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit went the other way in the school board case, as most other lower courts have done. It said O’Connor-Ratliff and Zone, elected trustees of the Poway Unified School District, had made their personal accounts a forum for communicating with parents and citizens.