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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: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Friday May 25 2018, @04:57PM (9 children)
There's shifting the goal posts, and then there's what you said. How exactly does twitter constitute as private life, ESPECIALLY when it is being used by Trump in his capacity as president? Maybe if he had limited to his tweets to cat videos and other personal things, then sure. But no, he's been continually making tweets regarding policy and other government matters.
I'm sorry, but no. You don't get to have it both ways. Trump is president, and whether he likes it or not, that comes with *gasp* responsibilities and limitations. At least until he manages to get the Republicans to give him dictator status.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 25 2018, @05:42PM (8 children)
ESPECIALLY when it is being used by Trump in his capacity as president?
And, also, ESPECIALLY when government funds are being used to operate the account.
FTA:
In her ruling, Judge Buchwald said Mr. Trump and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director, “exert governmental control over certain aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account.”
Dan Scavino is paid by us, not Trump.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Friday May 25 2018, @06:37PM (6 children)
Being fair, seeing how Trump donated his own salary (some $400k) to the treasury, I think we can look the other way when Dan Scavino ($180k) goes through his tweets a couple of times a day.
Money aside, a workable technical solution could be for Twitter to implement subscribe-able blacklists. So, when you subscribe to someone's feed, you'll have the option to also subscribe to their blacklist or anyone's blacklist for that matter. This could also resolve the censorship problem Twitter and Facebook are facing with regards to moderation: They can run multiple lists registering certain accounts under one violation or the next, and let people choose to do what they like with it. Hate speech... Sexual content... Troll... Democrat/Republican... Cat lovers... You'll have separate lists for everything moderated by 3rd parties. So people will elect their censor of choice to manage it or just blacklist people on their own. Then, if you see a developed thread where one party is blacklisted while another is seemingly discussing a topic you want to hear, you'd click the whitespace and the whole thread will open up without the censoring. You can even do a moderation system similar to soylent on top of it with scores and groups of moderators running their own hierarchies and stuff...
Basically, when people put you in a box it's a prison. But when you put yourself in a box it's your home.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 25 2018, @06:53PM (2 children)
I think we can look the other way when Dan Scavino ($180k) goes through his tweets a couple of times a day.
No, I don't think we can look the other way when government employees violate people's constitutional rights.
That's kind of a big deal, actually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @01:14AM
Two years of "Muh Russia" conspiracies and this is the best you got? He blocks people on Twitter... wow. Best oart of this 4d masterpiece is now and Dem who blocks people on Twitter will look like a hypocrate. I cant wait till they start getting clubbered on their own platform.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:45AM
Please. Just because the law hasn't caught up with giving private forums protections from defamation doesn't mean we should be treating Twitter and other social networking like public forums and press like some mindless legal drones. We both know it doesn't make a lick of sense not to let officials moderate their social accounts. The white-house was filtering the media allowed into the press briefings for years and no thought it's unreasonable. When presidents and secretaries attended private parties and gave speeches, no one suggested uninvited people should be allowed in to make counter speeches. And on the money issue, when "free" speech was written into law, it would have cost you a newspaper press and a publishing company distribution network.
Stop being too pedantic about the constitution. The right to bare arms doesn't mean you get to carry a nuke with you. The right to free speech doesn't mean you get to yell "Fire!" in a crowded hall, defame or circumvent someone's IP. There were always restrictions. Some specified by the letter of the law. Others by the technology of the times. I think any public official should be allowed to reach to their public without having the opposition take front row seats to toss tomatoes at their face during their speech. We can sort through this technically or legally, but it doesn't change the fact that you can't operate a representative democracy when candidates and representatives can't reach the public since their opposition is attacking them at every speech.
Even if we wanted to make every speech platform into a debate platform, people, elected officials or otherwise, would have a say against whom they are debating. Maybe a more direct form of democracy is better suited for the information age. But right now, presidents are executives and should only answer to congress, the house and the courts. If people don't like what he's saying, they should vote for a better president and/or congress men that would ask in their stead.
Overall, meh.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 25 2018, @08:38PM
Has f-all to do with what?
The president's salary is a gnat's turd on the ass of an elephant riding great blue whales across the oceans, flanked by schools of millions of sharks, tuna, turtles and dolphin.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @09:56PM (1 child)
He donated his salary as a PR move, he's making WAY more money by simply being the president. However it is a really good sound bite for morons who can't see beyond the surface details. "He's so rich he's donating 400k to help fix the government!!!" laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawl
Trump pegged you tards from the start, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."
Y'all are suckers and got taken for a massive ride by a conman. The sooner you come to terms with that the better for literally everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @10:42PM
By simply being the president, he has lost about a billion dollars.
Sure, I'd have voted for him if he stood in the middle of 5th avenue and shot someone. He couldn't have shot Vince Foster and Seth Rich.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday May 25 2018, @07:29PM
So, you thing twitter gets paid by people who tweet?
How very naive [quora.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.