Trump loses Twitter ruling
Blocking social media feed violates First Amendment, U.S. judge says
President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking seven people from his official Twitter account because they posted comments criticizing his policies, a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday.
A public official, even the president, who blocks Twitter followers prevents them from exercising their free speech rights, District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald held in a 75-page ruling.
“This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, ‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States,” Buchwald wrote.
“The answer to both questions is no,” she said.
Buchwald was ruling on a lawsuit filed in July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on behalf of seven Twitter members who were blocked from the president’s prolific
@realDonaldTrump account.
“We sued Trump and we won #BlockedByTrump,” tweeted Brandon Neely, a police officer in Houston. “It’s a good day for the first amendment.”
According to the suit, Neely replied to a Trump tweet about the opening of a new coal mine by tweeting, “Congrats and now black lung won’t be covered under #TrumpCare.”
Another plaintiff, Philip Cohen, said in an interview that he was “heartened” by the ruling, although he remained blocked. “I don’t expect him to unblock us without putting up more of a fight,” said Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. Cohen was blocked in June 2017 after tweeting a photo of Trump with the words “Corrupt Incompetent Authoritarian.”
Trump did not issue an immediate tweet on the ruling.
“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and are considering our next steps,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Twitter allows users to block people from following them. Blocked users can’t reply to or retweet a blocker’s tweets, see their list of followers and followed accounts or send direct messages. The judge noted the difference between blocking and the less-restrictive muting, which still allows replies to appear below the original tweet.
According to the ruling, lawyers for the president and White House Social Media Director Daniel Scavino argued that blocking was allowed because the president also had a personal First Amendment right in “choosing the people with whom he associates and retains the right not to engage with (i.e., the right to ignore) the individual plaintiffs.”
They also argued the plaintiffs “have no right to be heard by a government audience and no right to have their views amplified by the government,” Buchwald wrote. “While those propositions are accurate as statements of law, they nonetheless do not render the blocking of the individual plaintiffs constitutionally permissible.”
The judge ruled that Trump operated his Twitter account as a “public forum,” and the president’s personal First Amendment rights do not “supersede those of plaintiffs.”
Knight staff attorney Carrie DeCell said the organization was pleased with the decision, but expects the White House to appeal.
“Twitter is a new communications platform, but First Amendment principles are foundations,” DeCell said. “Public discourse is increasingly taking place online.”
DeCell said the case could have implications for all public officials using social media — not just Trump’s account.
“The reasoning in the court decisions, we think, should inform public officials’ activities on our social media pages throughout the country,” she said.
Some Californians have complained about being blocked by Sen. Kamala Harris, although her office said no one has ever been blocked from her official government social media channels.
In a separate suit, the Knight institute is also representing a Virginia resident who was blocked from a public official’s Facebook page.
Buchwald’s order leaves it up to the president to unblock those who were blocked.
“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,” the judge wrote.
David Greene, senior staff attorney and civil liberties director for Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Wednesday’s decision is similar to a handful of lower court rulings around the country that applied First Amendment protections to social media posts.
Greene said the San Francisco digital rights organization filed a similar suit last week representing the animal rights group PETA in a case in which the group’s name and keywords like “cruelty” were blocked from a Texas A&M University Facebook page.
“The courts are all acknowledging you can’t have viewpoint discrimination on comments on social media,” Greene said.
And amid the surge of cases, “this is the most high-profile decision,” he said.