JUDGE RULES TRUMP CANNOT BLOCK CRITICS ON TWITTER

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump cannot legally block Twitter users who disagree with him, a federal judge has ruled in a case with potentially far-reaching implications for social media use by public officials.

Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said on Wednesday the blocking of Trump critics — which prevents them from seeing and interacting with his tweets — violated the free speech rights of those users guaranteed in the Constitution’s First Amendment. In a 75-page opinion, the New York federal judge said the users “were indisputably blocked as a result of viewpoint discrimination” and that this was “impermissible under the First Amendment.”

The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of Twitter users and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

The lawsuit contended that because Trump uses Twitter for a variety of policy announcements, the account is “a designated public forum” that cannot exclude people due to their political views.

The judge acknowledged that even though Trump has certain free speech rights, he cannot violate the rights of other Twitter users.

“While we must recognise, and are sensitive to, the president’s personal First Amendment rights, he cannot exercise those rights in a way that infringes the corresponding First Amendment rights of those who have criticised him,” she said in her opinion.