‘President can’t block critics on Twitter’

IN RATHER more than 280 characters, a US federal court judge has ruled President Donald Trump can’t block critics from his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump.

New York Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled it’s unconstitutional for the head of state to block Twitter users from his account simply because he doesn’t agree with them, especially because Trump is a public figure who uses his personal account for political purposes.

The case – Knight Institute vs Trump – was lodged by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, arguing Trump violated freedom of speech by blocking followers from his account for posting messages he disliked.

University of Maryland Professor Philip Cohen was blocked by Trump in June 2017 after he answered a text from the president with the words: “Corrupt, incompetent, authoritarian.”

Trump’s lawyers and the White House director of social networks, Daniel Scavino, said the president had a right to decide who had access to his private Twitter account.

However, the court ruled the president is a public figure who has used his personal Twitter account to make political announcements. Thus his feed is a “public forum” protected by the first amendment.

“The @realDonaldTrump account has an ‘interactive space’ where Twitter users may directly engage with the content of the president’s tweets,”Buchwald ruled. Blocking complainants from this public space “based on their political speech constitutes discrimination that violates the First Amendment”, wrote the judge.

Trump’s account has 37 600 tweets and 52.2 million followers. The judge proposed Trump simply “mute” certain accounts. “The right of a person to speak is not violated when the government simply ignores that person… ”

No government office is above the law, “so we assume the president will remedy the blockade we consider unconstitutional”. – Telesur