President sued for blocking Twitter critics

PRESIDENT Donald Trump is being sued by people he blocked on Twitter who claim that he violated their right to free speech under the US Constitution.

The unprecedented case has been brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and named seven people rejected from Mr Trump’s account after criticising him.

Also being sued are Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, and Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media. Lawyers for the plaintiffs contend that Mr Trump’s tweets amount to official statements by the President of the United States. Mr Spicer has previously said they should be treated as such.

The complaint, filed in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, said: “The @realdonaldtrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public. And members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another.”

Jameel Jaffer, the Institute’s director, said: “It’s fair to say that this is a new frontier. The First Amendment principle is well-settled, but the applicability of that principle to this context isn’t an issue that the courts have yet had many occasions to address.”

The White House has yet to respond to the case, which has implications for other politicians seeking to block people who post criticism of them.