President Trump's practice of blocking Twitter users who are critical of him from seeing his posts on the social media platform violates the First Amendment, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday.
The ruling came in a case brought by seven Twitter users who had been blocked by the @realDonaldTrump account after they criticized the president.
The plaintiffs, who were joined in the suit by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, claimed that Mr. Trump's Twitter feed is an official government account and that blocking users from following it was a violation of their First Amendment rights.
In her ruling, Federal District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald wrote of the plaintiffs that "the speech in which they seek to engage is protected by the First Amendment" and that Mr. Trump and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director, "exert governmental control over certain aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/business/media/trump-twitter-block.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
See also: http://time.com/4808270/sean-spicer-donald-trump-twitter-statements/:
When asked at a press briefing whether Trump's tweets qualify as official statements on behalf of the White House, Spicer said that he "is the President of the United States, so they're considered official statements by the President of the United States."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ilsa on Friday May 25 2018, @04:51PM (3 children)
Trump isn't just Trump. He's the president. That means any channel he uses for communicating with the public in the capacity of president, becomes an "official" channel, whether he likes it or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @10:47PM
It sounds like you think the president doesn't have a right to deny somebody the right to attend a press conference in person.
No, that is absurd. People can hear about it from other people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @12:02AM (1 child)
Ah all good points. Is the Obama administration going to turn over those 30,000 emails any time soon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @08:26PM
Emails != twitter
Not judging emails one way or another, just a bad comparison.