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If your account gets banned, you're unable to communicate with the government (since it is established that Twitter is the president's official communication me

If your account gets banned, you're unable to communicate with the government (since it is established that Twitter is the president's official communication medium). Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment?

ryanoshea 8y ago
Haven't read the full decision, but here's how I see it. Governmental agencies do not instruct users to get in touch via Twitter. There are dedicated phone lines, email addresses, offices, and websites that serve that purpose in an official capacity. Agencies who do conduct business in response to inquiries on Twitter do so as an added convenience on top of the other readily available public channels. When Trump uses Twitter as his primary method of addressing citizens and announcing administration policies, then selectively prevents citizens from viewing those communications, he's doing something much different (in my mind) than a private company restricting the access of a person to a service whose terms of use they have violated. The equivalence you drew doesn't seem valid — US citizens have no expectation or right to send communications to the Office of the President and have them read or acted upon. They do have that expectation/right to have equal access to public communications by the President.
acdha 8y ago
You can still communicate with the government using official channels and you can still view his tweets. His account is basically write-only so you’re only losing your ability to send messages which won’t be read.
- ikeyany 8y ago
  Being banned still prevents you from interacting in more ways. Trump retweets and tags people/organizations all the time.
  - larkeith 8y ago
    The key here is that the Twitter is under no responsibility to facilitate your first amendment rights. The government, solely and exclusively, cannot limit your free speech; Twitter can do whatever they want, and are under no legal obligation to provide any service whatsoever to you.
    - ikeyany 8y ago
      I see. The user anigbrowl clarifies further below: > Allowing the government to use your service [as its preferred way of communicating] does not thereby make it part of the government.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  So you are saying the judge's ruling is wrong then. Because you can't defend twitter banning someone making them unable to respond to Trump's tweets while saying that people have the right to respond to Trump's tweets.
  - drivingmenuts 8y ago
    Twitter is not the only means of response. And the ruling only applies to the President's (currently Trump) use of Twitter and says nothing about your interaction with that service. As a private entity, they're free to make a ToS and you're free to agree or reject it, which governs your usage.
    - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
      But if I want to use the public forum that has been created, I'm forced to agree to those ToS. Imagine for a second if those ToS included something like banning all people from the state of New York or it banned all socialist. The government, by picking a service with a ToS to host a public forum, is there by enforcing the ToS as a requirement to participate in the public forum. So why can the government enforce a ToS that wouldn't be allowed without the 'private company' loophole? Now, twitter banning someone from all other parts of its service wouldn't be impacted. But banning someone from participating in the public forum should no longer be allowed unless done for a reason that the government would be allowed to use as well.
      - drivingmenuts 8y ago
        If the President (doesn't matter who) showed up at your house, in your living room, would you still claim the right to deny entry to anyone you chose? The judgement governs the President's use of Twitter, not the interaction between Twitter and other people. Twitter does not magically become a Public Forum, just because the President uses it. Now, I'm not sure that is Right and Just, but I'm also not going to worry about it too much. I don't use it enough to get completely wound up about it.
chimeracoder 8y ago
> If your account gets banned.... Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment? Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). If the government ran its own Mastodon instance, then there would be an argument to be made that it couldn't ban users on that Mastodon instance, depending on the nature of that Mastodon instance and what it's used for. But that's not what's happening. The government does not run Twitter in any way; they're simply users of the platform, and the government's ability to use features of the platform (such as the "block" feature) may be limited by existing laws, the same way the government's ability to do other things in life is limited by existing laws.
- ikeyany 8y ago
  Can we use a more common example? If one of the ways to interact with the executive branch is by calling the white house, wouldn't telecoms banning you from having a phone number be a more similar analogy?
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > If one of the ways to interact with the executive branch is by calling the white house, wouldn't telecoms banning you from having a phone number be a more similar analogy? No, because that's not what this ruling does. This ruling says that the White House can't block incoming calls from a specific number. (Though even that's not really a great analogy, because phone numbers are not considered to correspond uniquely or permanently to an individual the way that social media accounts are).
    - ikeyany 8y ago
      The parent comment was about Twitter banning individuals, not about the ruling: > Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment
      - chimeracoder 8y ago

ryanoshea 8y ago

Haven't read the full decision, but here's how I see it. Governmental agencies do not instruct users to get in touch via Twitter. There are dedicated phone lines, email addresses, offices, and websites that serve that purpose in an official capacity. Agencies who do conduct business in response to inquiries on Twitter do so as an added convenience on top of the other readily available public channels. When Trump uses Twitter as his primary method of addressing citizens and announcing administration policies, then selectively prevents citizens from viewing those communications, he's doing something much different (in my mind) than a private company restricting the access of a person to a service whose terms of use they have violated. The equivalence you drew doesn't seem valid — US citizens have no expectation or right to send communications to the Office of the President and have them read or acted upon. They do have that expectation/right to have equal access to public communications by the President.

acdha 8y ago

You can still communicate with the government using official channels and you can still view his tweets. His account is basically write-only so you’re only losing your ability to send messages which won’t be read.

ikeyany 8y ago
Being banned still prevents you from interacting in more ways. Trump retweets and tags people/organizations all the time.
- larkeith 8y ago
  The key here is that the Twitter is under no responsibility to facilitate your first amendment rights. The government, solely and exclusively, cannot limit your free speech; Twitter can do whatever they want, and are under no legal obligation to provide any service whatsoever to you.
  - ikeyany 8y ago
    I see. The user anigbrowl clarifies further below: > Allowing the government to use your service [as its preferred way of communicating] does not thereby make it part of the government.
PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
So you are saying the judge's ruling is wrong then. Because you can't defend twitter banning someone making them unable to respond to Trump's tweets while saying that people have the right to respond to Trump's tweets.
- drivingmenuts 8y ago
  Twitter is not the only means of response. And the ruling only applies to the President's (currently Trump) use of Twitter and says nothing about your interaction with that service. As a private entity, they're free to make a ToS and you're free to agree or reject it, which governs your usage.
  - PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
    But if I want to use the public forum that has been created, I'm forced to agree to those ToS. Imagine for a second if those ToS included something like banning all people from the state of New York or it banned all socialist. The government, by picking a service with a ToS to host a public forum, is there by enforcing the ToS as a requirement to participate in the public forum. So why can the government enforce a ToS that wouldn't be allowed without the 'private company' loophole? Now, twitter banning someone from all other parts of its service wouldn't be impacted. But banning someone from participating in the public forum should no longer be allowed unless done for a reason that the government would be allowed to use as well.
    - drivingmenuts 8y ago
      If the President (doesn't matter who) showed up at your house, in your living room, would you still claim the right to deny entry to anyone you chose? The judgement governs the President's use of Twitter, not the interaction between Twitter and other people. Twitter does not magically become a Public Forum, just because the President uses it. Now, I'm not sure that is Right and Just, but I'm also not going to worry about it too much. I don't use it enough to get completely wound up about it.

chimeracoder 8y ago

> If your account gets banned.... Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment? Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). If the government ran its own Mastodon instance, then there would be an argument to be made that it couldn't ban users on that Mastodon instance, depending on the nature of that Mastodon instance and what it's used for. But that's not what's happening. The government does not run Twitter in any way; they're simply users of the platform, and the government's ability to use features of the platform (such as the "block" feature) may be limited by existing laws, the same way the government's ability to do other things in life is limited by existing laws.

ikeyany 8y ago
Can we use a more common example? If one of the ways to interact with the executive branch is by calling the white house, wouldn't telecoms banning you from having a phone number be a more similar analogy?
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > If one of the ways to interact with the executive branch is by calling the white house, wouldn't telecoms banning you from having a phone number be a more similar analogy? No, because that's not what this ruling does. This ruling says that the White House can't block incoming calls from a specific number. (Though even that's not really a great analogy, because phone numbers are not considered to correspond uniquely or permanently to an individual the way that social media accounts are).
  - ikeyany 8y ago
    The parent comment was about Twitter banning individuals, not about the ruling: > Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment
    - chimeracoder 8y ago