Twitter users blocked by Trump file lawsuit

Group says people were barred over differing opinions.

A group of WASHINGTON — Twitter users blocked by President Donald Trump sued him and two top White House aides Tuesday, arguing that his account amounts to a public forum that he, as a government official, cannot bar people from.

The blocked Twitter users, represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, raised cutting-edge issues about how the Constitution applies to the social-media era. They say Trump cannot bar people from engaging with his account because they expressed opinions he did not like, such as mocking or criticizing him.

“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,” the lawsuit said.

By blocking people from reading his tweets, or from viewing and replying to message chains based on them, Trump is violating their First Amendment rights because they expressed views he did not like, the lawsuit argued.

It offered several theories to back that notion. They included arguments that Trump was imposing an unconstitutional restriction on the plaintiffs’ ability to participate in a designated public forum, get access to statements the government had otherwise made available to the public and petition the government for “redress of grievances.”

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit also names Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s director of social media, as defendants. It seeks a declaration that Trump’s blocking of the plaintiffs was unconstitutional, an injunction requiring him to unblock them and prohibiting him from blocking others for the views they express, and legal fees.

The Knight First Amendment Institute, directed by Jameel Jaffer, joined the suit as a plaintiff although its Twitter account had not been blocked. It argued it had a right to hear from people who had been blocked from participating in the “forum” based on his postings.

The lawsuit was foreshadowed last month by a letter the Knight First Amendment Institute sent to Trump on behalf of two of the now-plaintiffs asking him to unblock their accounts, but the White House did not do so.

Some legal specialists argue Trump’s account was personal, not official. The Knight Institute sought to rebut such critiques, saying the White House has taken several steps suggesting that the administration considers his Twitter account to be an official channel.