8 ms·

Don’t understand this. Blocking a person does not prevent the followers of said person to see the conversation , thus it’s not a public forum?

oddevan 8y ago
I would imagine it’s analogous to blocking phone numbers on the White House switchboard: freedom of speech in this context means that the President cannot artificially limit who speaks to him through publicly-available means.
- sgnelson 8y ago
  Yes, he doesn't have to listen to the callers, but he has to allow people to be able to contact him.
rovek 8y ago
Blocking on Twitter also prevents the blocked user from view the blocker's timeline, which means Trump would be preventing US citizens from viewing his "public statements" Edit: Is this being downvoted because of some inferred snark? None was intended.
- sp332 8y ago
  You can kind of get around this by viewing the site while logged out. But I don't know if that kind of thing is supported in any of the apps, so it's a big hoop to jump through.
  - rovek 8y ago
    Oh this is definitely true of the Twitter website but I would assume any barrier implemented is illegal, however ineffectual.
- Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
  You are being downvoted because you are wrong. Blocked users can log out and read to their hearts' content.
  - spookthesunset 8y ago
    > Blocked users can log out and read to their hearts' content. So private citizens now have to work around a block from President of the United States in order to read official communication? Is that the kind of country you want to live in? You know for sure as shit that homeboy was blocking more then Rolex watch spammers and markov chain bots. He was blocking the accounts of journalists, dissenters, and other private citizens. That is a fucked up thing for somebody who is a public official. What kind of dangerous precedent does allowing that kind of behavior set?
    - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
      How is logging out of Twitter a workaround? The blocking doesn't prevent anyone from reading the communications anymore than not being allowed into the Brady Room prevents anyone from seeing White House press conferences.
    - jexah 8y ago
      Not arguing one way or the other with regards to the original topic, but you are jumping to conclusions with no basis. "Private citizens" as a set naturally do not have to work around anything, as being a private citizen does not imply that one has a Twitter account. Entities (private citizens, corporations, or whatever else) that own a Twitter account, have done something that Trump believes warrants blocking, and are logged in, are prevented from viewing his tweets while logged into that specific account. The argument that anybody is prevented specifically from "reading" official communication is paper thin. The problem was that the government was effectively blocking private citizens' ability to reply and share under their preferred (potentially verified) identity.
  - Marysville 8y ago
    That would be akin to saying you can access your President by giving up your passport. I can't believe people are defending this.
evan_ 8y ago
I agree that it's kind of a questionable decision but my understanding of it is, people can normally post public replies to tweets- but if the user blocks you, you can't post your public reply. OK (and desirable) for most people, not ok for the government to do. There's not necessarily a perfect offline equivalent but it would sort of be like if the president tried to forbid a newspaper from running an editorial next to the text of a presidential speech- obviously unconstitutional. (not a perfect comparison because twitter users who are blocked can and do get around it by screenshotting or just linking to the tweet even though they can't reply to it) I think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's "personal" twitter account is an official government instrument.
- badlucklottery 8y ago
  >I think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's "personal" twitter account is an official government instrument. Didn't the administration state that Trump's tweets are official statements a while back? That might be a big reason why. Edit: Yup, they did. https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-officia...
  - some_random 8y ago
    Ah, that changes things significantly. While I'm still concerned about the potential application of this case onto others, the ruling is far more reasonable imo.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      The ruling basically seems to come down to: * If you are a government official, and * If you have an account on a social-media network, and * If you use that account to make official statements in your official capacity as a government official, then * You must follow the rules government officials are subject to with respect to channels for official communications in their official capacities. Among those rules are: you have to let the general public see what you're saying, and give them the opportunity to reply and comment, and cannot prevent them from seeing, replying or commenting simply because you don't like their opinions. This should be completely unsurprising, but apparently a lot of people on HN are surprised at this. (another fun and as-yet-undecided-by-a-court question is whether it's legal for him to delete tweets, since there are also record-keeping laws which typically require official communications to be preserved, and apparently HN is surprised at that too, judging from some of the other subthreads here)
DavideNL 8y ago
I'm not sure if replies to a tweet from someone who blocked you are associated with the tweet you replied to. If not, the followers would not see the reply in that thread/ conversation.
Ajedi32 8y ago
Pretty sure you can't directly reply to the Tweets of people who blocked you. So if Trump blocks someone on Twitter, they're no longer able to participate in conversations resulting from his tweets. (Unless they just make a new account, of course.)

oddevan 8y ago

I would imagine it’s analogous to blocking phone numbers on the White House switchboard: freedom of speech in this context means that the President cannot artificially limit who speaks to him through publicly-available means.

sgnelson 8y ago
Yes, he doesn't have to listen to the callers, but he has to allow people to be able to contact him.

rovek 8y ago

Blocking on Twitter also prevents the blocked user from view the blocker's timeline, which means Trump would be preventing US citizens from viewing his "public statements" Edit: Is this being downvoted because of some inferred snark? None was intended.

sp332 8y ago
You can kind of get around this by viewing the site while logged out. But I don't know if that kind of thing is supported in any of the apps, so it's a big hoop to jump through.
- rovek 8y ago
  Oh this is definitely true of the Twitter website but I would assume any barrier implemented is illegal, however ineffectual.
Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
You are being downvoted because you are wrong. Blocked users can log out and read to their hearts' content.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > Blocked users can log out and read to their hearts' content. So private citizens now have to work around a block from President of the United States in order to read official communication? Is that the kind of country you want to live in? You know for sure as shit that homeboy was blocking more then Rolex watch spammers and markov chain bots. He was blocking the accounts of journalists, dissenters, and other private citizens. That is a fucked up thing for somebody who is a public official. What kind of dangerous precedent does allowing that kind of behavior set?
  - Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
    How is logging out of Twitter a workaround? The blocking doesn't prevent anyone from reading the communications anymore than not being allowed into the Brady Room prevents anyone from seeing White House press conferences.
  - jexah 8y ago
    Not arguing one way or the other with regards to the original topic, but you are jumping to conclusions with no basis. "Private citizens" as a set naturally do not have to work around anything, as being a private citizen does not imply that one has a Twitter account. Entities (private citizens, corporations, or whatever else) that own a Twitter account, have done something that Trump believes warrants blocking, and are logged in, are prevented from viewing his tweets while logged into that specific account. The argument that anybody is prevented specifically from "reading" official communication is paper thin. The problem was that the government was effectively blocking private citizens' ability to reply and share under their preferred (potentially verified) identity.
- Marysville 8y ago
  That would be akin to saying you can access your President by giving up your passport. I can't believe people are defending this.

evan_ 8y ago

I agree that it's kind of a questionable decision but my understanding of it is, people can normally post public replies to tweets- but if the user blocks you, you can't post your public reply. OK (and desirable) for most people, not ok for the government to do. There's not necessarily a perfect offline equivalent but it would sort of be like if the president tried to forbid a newspaper from running an editorial next to the text of a presidential speech- obviously unconstitutional. (not a perfect comparison because twitter users who are blocked can and do get around it by screenshotting or just linking to the tweet even though they can't reply to it) I think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's "personal" twitter account is an official government instrument.

badlucklottery 8y ago
>I think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's "personal" twitter account is an official government instrument. Didn't the administration state that Trump's tweets are official statements a while back? That might be a big reason why. Edit: Yup, they did. https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-official-statements/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-officia...
- some_random 8y ago
  Ah, that changes things significantly. While I'm still concerned about the potential application of this case onto others, the ruling is far more reasonable imo.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    The ruling basically seems to come down to: * If you are a government official, and * If you have an account on a social-media network, and * If you use that account to make official statements in your official capacity as a government official, then * You must follow the rules government officials are subject to with respect to channels for official communications in their official capacities. Among those rules are: you have to let the general public see what you're saying, and give them the opportunity to reply and comment, and cannot prevent them from seeing, replying or commenting simply because you don't like their opinions. This should be completely unsurprising, but apparently a lot of people on HN are surprised at this. (another fun and as-yet-undecided-by-a-court question is whether it's legal for him to delete tweets, since there are also record-keeping laws which typically require official communications to be preserved, and apparently HN is surprised at that too, judging from some of the other subthreads here)

DavideNL 8y ago

I'm not sure if replies to a tweet from someone who blocked you are associated with the tweet you replied to. If not, the followers would not see the reply in that thread/ conversation.

Ajedi32 8y ago

Pretty sure you can't directly reply to the Tweets of people who blocked you. So if Trump blocks someone on Twitter, they're no longer able to participate in conversations resulting from his tweets. (Unless they just make a new account, of course.)