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from the silence-all-disagreement-and-only-agreement-will-be-seen dept.
Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute has filed a lawsuit against President Trump for blocking seven users on Twitter, claiming that the action violates the users' First Amendment right to participate in a public political forum:
The institute filed suit today on behalf of seven Twitter users who were blocked by the president, which prevents them from seeing or replying to his tweets. It threatened legal action in a letter to Trump in June, and now "asks the court to declare that the viewpoint-based blocking of people from the @realDonaldTrump account is unconstitutional."
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York, elaborates on the Knight Institute's earlier letter. It contends that Trump's Twitter account is a public political forum where citizens have a First Amendment right to speak. Under this theory, blocking users impedes their right to participate in a political conversation and stops them from viewing official government communication. Therefore, if Trump blocks people for criticizing his political viewpoints, he'd be doing the equivalent of kicking them out of a digital town hall.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 12 2017, @02:00PM (2 children)
Seriously, Twatter is the wrong tool for the job. The President of the United States has no business posting on a private micro-blogging service (and neither does Donald Trump :P). They should be hosting their own systems so they can have full control over the data and how it gets used.
Despite how the news agencies get payed to spin it, Twitter is not an official source of information. It is just a bunch of retards posting crap, only slightly more civilized than 4chan.
Oh, it would be hilarious if news sites would start quoting posts for 4chan! "And in related news, William Shatner, better known for his role as captain Kirk, discovers 4chan - no really!".
CNN might as well have some breaking news reported from the -1 comments on SoylentNews, or some other random web site. So why the fuck Tweeter? Similar goes for Farcebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @03:46PM
You think the President's statements become insignificant, or not newsworthy, simply because he posts them on a private website?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @04:31PM
Those news agencies and their spin... How dare they literally report the words of the White House Press Secretary [nbcnews.com].