2 Twitter users say Trump had no right to block their accounts
Some Twitter users say President Trump should not be able to block them on the social network.
The president makes unprecedented use of Twitter, having posted more than 24,000 times on his @realDonaldTrump account to 31.7 million followers. His tweets about domestic and foreign policy — and media coverage of him and his administration — has transformed Twitter into a public forum with free speech protections.
That’s the opinion of two Twitter users, who have the backing of the Knight First Amendment Institute. They are sending a letter to the White House asking Trump to unblock them on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Both users say they were blocked recently after tweeting messages critical of the president. Holly O’Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan), whose Twitter account identifies her as a March for Truth organizer, said she was blocked May 23 after posting a GIF of Pope Francis looking and frowning at Trump captioned, “This is pretty much how the whole world sees you.”
Similarly, Joseph Papp (@joeabike), an “anti-doping advocate” and cyclist, said he was blocked after posting, “Why didn’t you attend your own PittsburghNotParis rally in DC, Sir? #fakeleader” in responses to the president’s June 3 tweet of his weekly address.
In the letter to Trump and the White House, the Knight First Amendment Institute’s attorneys argue that Trump’s Twitter account “operates as a ‘designated public forum’ for First Amendment purposes, and accordingly the viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional. We ask that you unblock them and any others who have been blocked for similar reasons.”
Even though the tweets may have “disagreed or ridiculed you,” the letter says, “they were protected by the First Amendment.” The Supreme Court has supported protections of “sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks” as part of the “robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment,” the letter says.
The Knight Institute’s attorneys plan legal action if Twitter followers who have been blocked because of their views are not unblocked.
Trump also has 18.7 million followers on the @POTUS account on which he has posted 647 tweets.
Both argue that their critical tweets are protected by the First Amendment