Request 004 — 1/4/2026

Blocked and reported. (By your mayor!)

It’s Sunday! Welcome to foiaday!

There’s nothing quite like beating the Sunday Scaries by filing FOIA requests that won’t even be processed for another 18 hours at least. 

It’s the fourth day of the year, and I’ve requested four documents so far. Still nothing back. But I think today’s request is what I’m going to look forward to getting back the most, honestly.

In the FOIA Advent Calendar this past December, I included prompts for records requests involving social media accounts. Day 27, which was requesting for deleted posts, can be tricky depending on how each platform and agency complies with records retention policies. It can reveal what one professor, Muira McCammon, calls a digital memory hole in government records. (Here’s a good example of her request to the EPA for different types of deleted content, if you’re interested.)  

So I'm not going for deleted posts for this one. I'm going to do blocked users, which was the prompt for Day 10. 

Blocked users is an easy one to walk FOIA officers through if needed — it's usually located in the security and privacy settings — and is likely best requested for that current point in time (though, let's also consider that social handles can transfer from person to person based on who holds the title).

Naturally, I'm going to request Chicago's very own mayor, Brandon Johnson (socials links here!). But let's throw a few others in there, too:

• Zohran Mamdani (@NYCMayor)

• Michelle Wu (@officeofmayorwu on TT; @mayorwu on mostly everything else)

• Karen Bass (@mayorofla)

• Muriel Bowser (@mayor_bowser on ig, @MayorBowser on Twitter)

• Donald Trump (@POTUS, @realdonaldtrump) 

I know, I know. This is the second day in a row where I'm sending multiple requests in one. Even better that it's not on a business day. Go big or go home, though. 

…on that note, we’ll also request not just Twitter, but Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn (????), if the entity has one.

Here’s the language I used to request the document:

A current (as of 1/4/26) list of all blocked users on all official social media profiles used by the Office of the Mayor. This includes Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.

The following instructions might be helpful for exporting these lists by platform:
- Twitter/X: https://help.x.com/en/using-x/advanced-x-block-options 
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/support/faq_detail?id=7543897460872190470&category=web_account 
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1335373 
- Instagram: https://help.instagram.com/461525818338125/ 
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/471563593459787/ 

Please release information in a digitized format, like a .pdf, if at all possible. In some cases, if copy and pasting or screenshotting is required, the format that you collect the data in is perfectly fine by me. 

It'll be interesting to see what comes back from those requests. I think down the line going for state offices could be fun, too. (If you decide to do that and beat me to it, drop me a line and let me know how it goes!)

On Monday, I'll email out a summary of the requests I've filed so far, but here's what we've got for right now:

Like I mentioned yesterday, because it’s a weekend, the FOIA isn't required to be acknowledged or processed until Monday at the earliest. And while in Illinois, requests are required to be acknowledged within five days of receipt, I'm requesting across a handful of jurisdictions. Here's what to expect:

• Illinois (Chicago): Five days! And then extensions.

• California (L.A.): Ten days for receipt! 

• New York (NYC): Five ±20 days!

• Massachusetts (Boston): Ten days for receipt! 

• DC: 15 days for receipt!

• Federal: 20 days!

Were my eyes bigger than my stomach? Probably. Will this be a pain? Maybe. But we'll roll with it and it'll make for  ✨️ great content ✨️.

(The more fun thing about this is how much people will learn about how little experience I have with state-by-state discrepancies in public records law. Definitely correct me if I’m wrong, if you’re an eagle-eyed reader and spot a mistake! We’re all learning and requesting together. 🙂)

If there's a coworker or friend you think would benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them! If they subscribe, they'll also get a link to a template for the tracker I like to use to keep tabs on requests I've filed.

Tomorrow, I'll share a link to a request or ideas form, if you're interested in helping me out along the way or passing on interesting pieces of reporting or research that uses FOIA. In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments, love letters or conspiracy theories, feel free to drop me a line by replying to this email. 

Happy filing!

Cam