Law Trump can't block Twitter followers, federal judge says

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LogicalFighting said:
true, but they still remain public even if a user-account is blocked. that's why it's a bit odd.
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It sounds like that might be an "infringement" that would have to be justified by a first amendment standard, which is pretty high. I don't know the arguments well enough, but limiting public access to an official source of information is very problematic.
 
This is a cool issue.
LogicalFighting said:
i suppose,
but the limitation is what? logging out? or not having to log in?

on the air, cnbc mentioned something about Ellon Musk and whether he will be allowed to block users, so it does pose some interesting questions.

if this applies to public officials will it eventually apply to public figures like Musk? or any celebrity for that matter?
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Blocking users effectively prevents them from responding and participating in those twitter threads, and puts restrictions on their ability to read materials. There are some cases (@alanb) that find 1A violations when someone is blocked from commenting on a fbook page by a government actor. This seems similar.

But this would be irrelevant to Musk or other private actors.


Edit: read the opinion, confirmed my belief, edited accordingly
 
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It's not his account when he puts POTUS on it -- it's government, and the courts decided you can't block people from it.

Besides, a president blocking people would be as much of a bitch move as a sherdogger doing so.
 
bullshit decision. Donny has every right to block anyone he wants.
 
panamaican said:
It makes sense to me. The POTUS isn't blocking his account. He's blocking his account from specific Americans. And the only way he knows which specific Americans is through their Twitter handle. Logging out of Twitter to see his post is like being invited to a party...as long as you don't enter the building and only watch through a window.

It appears that the judge is saying that the POTUS can't shut out people from the public forum under any circumstance, even if there's a workaround. It doesn't matter what you're going to do, you have to be allowed to see the government's actions from within the public forum itself.
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makes sense.

makes me wonder about the whole public official versus public figure thing though and publicly traded companies too.
 
LogicalFighting said:
i suppose,
but the limitation is what? logging out? or not having to log in?

on the air, cnbc mentioned something about Ellon Musk and whether he will be allowed to block users, so it does pose some interesting questions.

if this applies to public officials will it eventually apply to public figures like Musk? or any celebrity for that matter?
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Probably not. Musk may be in the public spotlight, but he's a private individual and not an agent of the government. He shouldn't be held to the same standards.
 
LogicalFighting said:
makes sense.

makes me wonder about the whole public official versus public figure thing though and publicly traded companies too.
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That's a different branch of first amendment law dealing with defamation (but yeah, Elon musk would probably have more trouble than joe boring making a defamation claim because of public interest). Not really a concern here.
 
LogicalFighting said:
Just saw this on CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/23/trump-cant-block-twitter-followers-federal-judge-says.html

"President Donald Trump cannot block users on his Twitter feed, a New York federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The judge, Naomi Reice Buchwald, ruled that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing Americans from viewing his tweets.

The suit was filed in July 2017 by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

"This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, 'block' a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States," the judge said in her opinion. "The answer to both questions is no." "

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Now this seems rather odd to me, especially the reasoning.

I could see blocking being unconstitutional because it takes away the ability of a twitter user from exercising their right of speech since they cannot directly reply to a public officials statement,

But the quote I posted seems to say that it is unconstitutional because it prevents a user from viewing a twitter post. But this can't be right since even if your account is blocked on twitter, you can still access the account if you're logged out, right?

I can understand if it said a public official cannot make a private account and be exclusive as to who they decide to allow access, and I can understand if the ruling claimed that blocking a user takes away their ability to comment, but that doesn't seem the case.

Thoughts?
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Liberal judges will allow anything if it suits their ideology.
Did Obama ever block anyone? We sure we want to set this precedent?

But the real answer is for twitter to allow reading but not posting.
 
LOL. The fuck? Suing him for utilizing a feature twitter has?
 
Judge said:
Liberal judges will allow anything if it suits their ideology.
Did Obama ever block anyone? We sure we want to set this precedent?

But the real answer is for twitter to allow reading but not posting.
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but then argument would be that a person can't exercise their free speech to respond to a post so i don't think that would work
 
I don't understand all the legal principles involved, but on its face it seems like a reasonable point of view.

However, consider the ramifications for Twitter if its platform is being considered a public utility here.
 
JudoThrowFiasco said:
It's not his account when he puts POTUS on it -- it's government, and the courts decided you can't block people from it.

Besides, a president blocking people would be as much of a bitch move as a sherdogger doing so.
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I have half the forum on ignore :oops:
Though I'm not the president.

I think this is a step in the right direction when it comes to censorship. I'm not saying it's the same thing, but Twitter is currently able to block people from "listening to the potus", so maybe in the future conservatives won't be booted just for not being liberal.
 
This is exactly why a person with thin skin should never seek public office.
 
Poor little Donny can't handle the mean stuff people say on twitter, yet cant stay off of it, what a bitch. Seriously the stupid see this man as an alpha?
 
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