The Supreme Court seems stumped by two cases about free speech online

A pair of Supreme Court cases asking what limits the First Amendment places on government officials who use social media seemed to perplex the justices on Tuesday. The arguments in O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed featured a cacophony of questions about cat pictures, spontaneous grocery store conversations, and a simply dizzying array of proposed legal rules — none of which seemed likely to fully inform public officials what they may and may not do online.

The cases involve similar issues. In O’Connor-Ratcliff, two school board members in California...