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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: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 25 2018, @05:37PM (7 children)
So apparently if you're president now you legally have no private life.
If it was actually private the decision may have gone the other way.
It's not, though, he's got Whitehouse staffers operating the Twitter account. Those are public employees.
So he's using taxpayer money to run the account and the courts say that makes it a government account. It's not that illogical.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 25 2018, @05:47PM (1 child)
He does? If so they're doing a pretty shoddy job of keeping him from making a fool of himself.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 25 2018, @06:04PM
He does? If so they're doing a pretty shoddy job of keeping him from making a fool of himself.
They can't fix Trump so they actually purposely make themselves sound dumber:
Trump's staff ghostwrites some of his tweets and inserts grammatical errors to make them seem authentic [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Friday May 25 2018, @07:31PM (4 children)
No, he doesn't have whitehouse staffers operating the account.
They might look at it once in a while, but they specifically do not operate it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 25 2018, @08:13PM (2 children)
No, he doesn't have whitehouse staffers operating the account.
This is the stipulation of facts [knightcolumbia.org] from the case. (wherein both parties agree to a mutual set of facts upon which to base the case)
12. Defendant Daniel Scavino is the White House Social Media Director and
Assistant to the President and is sued in his official capacity only. Mr. Scavino posts messages
on behalf of President Trump to @realDonaldTrump and other social media accounts, including
@POTUS and @WhiteHouse. Mr. Scavino has access to the @realDonaldTrump account,
including the access necessary to block and unblock individuals from the @realDonaldTrump
account.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday May 26 2018, @04:26AM (1 child)
Now I'm wondering if the guy who posts here as The Real Donald Trump is actually Scavino or his minions?
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:00AM
I don't know if it is one of Scavino or his minions, but if he isn't then they should hire him. I was starting to wonder if it was actually The Donald.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2018, @10:38PM
Does it hurt your ego to be constantly wrong? Have you thought about maybe branching out in your belief system?