Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter, Judge Rules
Local Editor
US President Donald Trump cannot block critics on Twitter since doing so violates their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, a federal judge ruled.
The ruling from Judge Naomi Buchwald said that discussions arising from Trump's tweets should be considered a public forum, as the messages are "governmental in nature". Judge Buchwald rejected an argument from the Department of Justice that Trump's own rights under the First Amendment allowed him to block people with whom he did not want to interact with.
Blocking users "as a result of the political views they have expressed is impermissible under the First Amendment," Judge Buchwald wrote in the order, adding the president cannot use Twitter in a way "that infringes on the corresponding First Amendment rights of those who have criticized him".
A handful of Twitter users had sued after the president blocked them in response to critical tweets. The resulting case turned on the questions posed by Trump's unprecedented use of Twitter to announce policies, elevate allies and lambaste foes.
As Judge Buchwald wrote, the legal challenge entails "the First Amendment's application to the distinctly twenty-first century medium of Twitter".
However, the judge stopped short of directly ordering Trump - or those who work for him - to unblock users, saying it was not necessary to enter a "legal thicket" involving the power court can hold over the president. The lawsuit had also named Trump's social media director, Dan Scavino, as a defendant.
"Because no government official is above the law and because all government officials are presumed to follow the law once the judiciary has said what the law is, we must assume that the president and Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional," she wrote.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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