Wait, <i>any</i> public official? So the elected school board members in my town can't block me on Twitter if I go on crazy racist tirades, as long as they're political in nature? How about the dogcatcher? He can't block PETA animal rights screed accounts? And doesn't being forced to let cranks interact with prominent accounts increase those cranks' visibility? Is that forcing the prominent person to promote speech with which they disagree?<p>I think there's a lot of nuance this opinion doesn't address.
This seems wrong on the face of it. The judge asks the rhetorical question of whether the logic changes based on whether he's president or not, and he answers his question with a "No". So this is saying that no public official can block others on Twitter. That seems like it's in the "suicide pact" column of rights defense, but then I'm not one that cares about Twitter personally. Just seems that plenty of other forums and even avenues on Twitter for expression remain after blockage from one person's feed. And given that blocking is part and parcel to the app, it would seem like everyone is buying into the terms of the environment when they start using it. Curious how this shakes out to other mediums.
Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment, since that prevents them from accessing the same "public square" this ruling is protecting their access to.
FWIW, whitehouse.gov lists @realdonaldtrump (as opposed to @POTUS) as the President's official Twitter account:<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20180523194453/https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-trump-administration/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20180523194453/https://www.whiteh...</a>
Careful there. A judge calling Twitter a "public square" might ultimately lead to an extension of Marsh v. Alabama whereby social media platforms will not be able to censor political views they dislike. Slippery slopes and all that.
Isn't there a caveat? The article (unlike the headline) says "blocking people based on political speech" is forbidden. However, he is still free to block trolls right?
I am not legal expert but it makes perfect sense that any government official must not deny access to information to any citizen which is easily available to another.<p>Blocking means other person can not see trump's tweets. I believe Trump can always mute other people.<p>Let us consider the following scenarios :<p>- Trump blocks only black people on Twitter.
- Hawaii's missile alert systems issues a real missile alert on their Twitter but Mr X does not get it because he was blocked by them.
- Mr. Joe goes to local DMV to get a driving manual. DMV clerk closes the window on his face and refused to give him the manual.<p>How is twitter scenario different here ?
There are police departments all over the US illegally censoring critical sentiment on Facebook. The only way to stop them is to sue each one that does it. Makes me angry. Pasco PD gets away with murder. Literally and figuratively.
Traditionally, the publisher exercises control (and has responsibility for) content. So who are the publishers here? What parts of twitter are the public forum? Twitter itself, or individual accounts as well?
So Trump could still mute people, right?<p>Seems like the reason he can't block people is because it prevents them from replying to his posts and engaging in the public conversation. Title seems a bit misleading, almost makes it sound like he <i>has</i> to read all of his twitter replies.
I want to know how this court plans to enforce this ruling. Or are we just going to accept that the president is above the law when he declines to follow the ruling and keeps blocking people? I bet it'll be the latter.
"The judge declined to issue an order forcing Trump to unblock the users, saying her ruling should be sufficient to force a change in behavior."<p>Because Trump is the master of sub-text and will pick up that he should unblock them.
From the wikipedia page about the decision<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Reice_Buchwald#Knight_First_Amendment_Institute_v._Donald_J._Trump" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Reice_Buchwald#Knight_Fi...</a><p>>Buchwald declined, however, to issue an injunction against the President, and instead issued a declaration with the statement that "we must assume that the President and [Daniel] Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional."<p>So for now, Trump really doesn't have to change anything.
Looks like the judge just decided "oh, it's against Trump? I hate Trump, so whatever it is I am on the plaintiff's side". We should expect better from judges. 1st amendment has nothing to do with being able to annoy Trump via his personal Twitter account. And it is fascinating how Twitter, Facebook etc. are private companies with no obligations when it is convenient to censor, but suddenly turn into "public forum" when other convenience demands it.
So, would it be okay for Trump's YouTube channel to prevent any comment from being made? That's a feature of YouTube. Might need to enable that for Twitter.
An interesting ruling, here is my prediction on the effect of the ruling:<p>This will enable the twitterati to get Trump off Twitter. Without the ability to block users, he will be hounded with notifications from adversaries using trigger phrases designed to irritate and harass him.
> The judge said the comment section of Trump’s personal account, @realDonaldTrump, is a public forum and that blocking users on the basis of political speech is a violation of their free-speech rights under the First Amendment.<p>If this applied to @potus I <i>might</i> agree with it but applying it to his personal account is rubbish. You could easily extend that same logic to say that any elected official, at any level of government, can't block communications from anyone on their personal accounts.<p>Trump using his personal account to comment on "work" (i.e. being President) doesn't de facto make it a work account no more than me complaining about my job on my personal email turns it into a work email.
I feel pretty conflicted on this. The way Trump is using his Twitter, it almost becomes public property. I mean he's making huge announcements, almost solely on Twitter. So, at that point, it's almost like denying public access to the State of the Union. But, on the other hand, it's his damn Twitter and he should be able to do whatever he wants with it.<p>I guess it begs the question, when you're a "public servant", and you use your social media as a medium, are you entitled to privacy in the same way a standard citizen is? Or does that medium become public property? It's probably best that "public servants" don't use their private materials in an official capacity.<p>[edit] switched public capacity to official.
Trump has multiple twitter accounts. His primary one is @realDonaldTrump, which he's been using since 2009, long before he was a government figure. This is his private citizen Twitter account, as far as I'm concerned, and he can do whatever he damn well pleases there.<p>If he were to block people from his @POTUS President Donald Trump account, then I might take issue with that.
<i>People</i> are not blocked. Only <i>accounts</i> are blocked. It's not the same thing at all. It's trivial (and free) to create another account; in other words, the ban is not tied to you as a person, only to certain account.<p>Besides, you can still read all tweets of whoever blocked you; all it takes is logging out of your blocked account, or not logging in in the first place.<p>They can't comment anymore, true. But by this line of reasoning, is Trump (or any president / public official, for that matter) obliged to take <i>phone calls</i> from everyone?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”<p>Hard to grasp the logic here.
Has the judge read some of the comments being made? Absolute craziness in there. Some accounts should absolutely be blocked, they are repeatedly spamming and saying things you would never say in a meeting face to face.<p>-EDIT-
Funny that my comment is being down-voted. Seen everyone wants to moderate comments. If someone says something you don't like on your personal page, you should be able to stop that. You've just exercise your rights to drop my comment to the bottom.