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Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

105 points by tareqak 8y ago

jasonkostempski 8y ago
I get blocking incoming messages. Why is there a feature for blocking publicly broadcast messages available even to annonymos users?
Mithorium 8y ago
Someone have a readable version? Article shows up for 250ms on my screen then disappears leaving only the reuters header, tried switching browsers and everything
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jrace 8y ago
  U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president’s account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on August 10 sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that had remained blocked from Trump’s @RealDonaldTrump account. The seven users who filed suit had their accounts unblocked in June. The 41 blocked users include a film producer, screenwriter, photographer and author who had criticized President Trump or his policies. At least 20 of those individuals said on Twitter that Trump had unblocked them on Tuesday. The 41 users were not a comprehensive list of those blocked by Trump. Rosie O’Donnell, a comedian, said on Twitter late Tuesday that she remained blocked. The White House did not immediately comment late Tuesday. The ruling has raised novel legal issues. The Internet Association, a trade group that represents Twitter, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, and Alphabet Inc, filed a brief in the case earlier this month that did not back Trump or the blocked users but urged the court to “limit its decision to the unique facts of this case so that its decision does not reach further than necessary or unintentionally disrupt the modern, innovative Internet.” Trump has made his Twitter account, with 54.1 million followers, an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics, preventing them from directly responding to his tweets. The U.S. Justice Department said the ruling was “fundamentally misconceived” arguing Trump’s account “belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government.” Buchwald rejected the argument that Trump’s First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact. Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. The Internet Association said the court “should make clear that this case does not implicate the overwhelming majority of social media accounts throughout the Internet.” “Despite any First Amendment status that this court might find in the ‘interactive spaces’ associated with President Trump’s account, Twitter retains authority to revoke access to both his account and the account of any user seeking to comment on President Trump’s account,” the group said. FILE PHOTO: The masthead of U.S. President Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account with a message about OPEC policy is seen on April 20, 2018. @realDonaldTrump/Handout via REUTERS It also warned “there is a considerable risk that any decision that may recognize isolated public forums on Twitter will be misunderstood to hold that Twitter, too, can be subject to First Amendment scrutiny. ...Twitter itself is not a state actor when it blocks or withdraws access to its account-holders or users, and it is therefore not subject to the First Amendment’s restraints.” Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
educationdata 8y ago
Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? Or this court ruling only works on Trump?
- bcheung 8y ago
  It has to do with denying citizens access to information from the government. So it would probably depend on whether public officials are using an account for official government usage or if it is personal.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Public officials would be fine blocking people on their personal accounts as long as they draw a clear line between their personal and official accounts. Trump ran afoul of the law here because he didn’t do that.
  - psergeant 8y ago
    Despite being downvotes, this is on the money. Had he maintained some kind of separation between himself and the office on Twitter, it’d have been fine, but he announces policy change first on Twitter, for example.
    - FireBeyond 8y ago
      The issue is that he had no interest in using the @potus account, because his narcissism wanted the follower bump on his personal Twitter account.
- ibejoeb 8y ago
  This is a legitimate question and should not be downvoted.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? If the use of their account meets certain legal criteria which make it a limited public forum, yes; that's generally true of official government accounts, whether of an office or office holder, but can be true of notionally personal accounts if used for government purposes (as the court has evidence, including White House statements, was the case for Trump's “personal” account.) Note that while Trump's Twitter account is the highest visibility case on this issue, there have been a number of similar cases regarding local government offices and officials accounts on various social media platforms with the same general result before the case about Trump's account was filed.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chollida1 8y ago
In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time. being the two major ones pertinent to twitter. Other things like claiming "funding secured" when your board, bankers and supposed funders all claim otherwise are also bad and likely to get him in more trouble, but are not important to the twitter disclosure. The solution to this is to use the newswire like everyone else in the US stock market but if he wants to use twitter, and it looks like he may no longer be able to after the SEC is done, then he'll most likely not be able to block anyone from seeing his tweets. I'm not sure how else you can fulfill the very reasonable requirement of equal disclosure to everyone otherwise.
- HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
  This is pushing it sooo much that makes me wonder if you have an agenda here. Tweets can be viewed without signing in( including replies) so anyone actually has access to them. Additionally there is legal text in the Tesla shares saying "expect updates on social media".
- compsciphd 8y ago
  I think one can make the argument that Trump and Musk might be different. Trump by blocking users doesn't prevent the users from seeing the content (i.e. they can log out and see the content). What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president (i.e. why its a free speech issue). It's basically saying that users A, B, and C can easily engage, but by blocking D, we are going to put a road block that makes it difficult for D. In the case of Musk, if one is claiming that blocking is discriminating who can see the content, one can make the claim that this really isn't true, all blocking does is make it more difficult to interface with musk, not to see the content.
  - 8y ago
bumholio 8y ago
> Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They can still comment, on their own pages, in their own articles, but their comments will not have similar visibility to the people that follow Donald Trump and related conversations. And I think the court overreached to call it a violation of the rights to free speech. Because what the commenters really want is visibility, they want to piggy back on the large audience Trump's tweets have and exploit the way Twitter's algorithm highlights such replies, especially if they are 'considered important' though their own retweets, likes etc. For example, I want to produce an one hour rant about how Donald Trump is a cretin that damages the US and the world, and have it uploaded on the White House website - an official communication tool of the US government - so that it has proper visibility. But the White House can rightfully deny that request without violating my freedom of speech. Twitter is a multi-user version of a similar software, which unlike whitehouse.gov is configured by default to allow such posts on other's users pages.
- beager 8y ago
  I wonder if the decision comes down to that some people have the ability to be a part of the conversation on Twitter, but not the people that Trump has blocked, and therefore that's considered unequal treatment. To follow your analogy, nobody can post their podcast on the White House's website. If Donald Trump somehow had replies completely turned off for his Twitter, I don't think a case could be made that first amendment rights were being infringed.
  - bumholio 8y ago
    Well, that discrimination exists on the current White House site. I just went there and on the front page I found this article, that quotes some people friendly to Trump's policies, many of them (ironically) sourced from tweets: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/wtas-support-president-donald-j-trumps-trade-announcement-mexico/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wh https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/wtas-support... So why should these people be cited, but not others critical to the administration? Who gets to make that decision, and why can't they make a similar decision on Twitter itself?
rpiguy 8y ago
The judiciary acting against Trump in this case may ultimately work against them. This judge just invented the concept of free speech rights on the internet, even on a private platform like Twitter. I fully understand that legally this is very different the issue of Facebook or Twitter "censoring" conservatives (and as a conservative, I actually support their right as private companies to operate as they see fit), and that the judge's ruling is on the basis of access to information citing the first amendment right to free speech, but this ruling opens the door into an uncharted legal area. Once the government gets intwined in these kinds of issues there are usually unforeseen consequences.
- bertil 8y ago
  The amicus brief from the Internet Alliance makes that fear very clear: they demanded clarification that those decisions only apply to interactions with accounts that are clearly used as policy tool by the US Government. For me, the fact that this is the personal account and not @potus is the outlying factor. The court was explicit that, because policy was announced from that account, it made it a Government tool, subject to a lot of rules. To me, this is a smart move, warning the next President: make sure that all communications where you use the power of the office are from @potus, because otherwise, National Archive will get into your DMs. If encourages to define a line between the West and the East Wing (the personal residency) and extend it to social media.
  - rpiguy 8y ago
    Yes but if the primary argument is based around the idea that everyone must have access to these “public channels” because their first amendment rights guarantee them a right to the information from the President and to be part of the conversation then a plausible argument can be made that Twitter, etc. cannot ban anyone from their site, or Facebook for that matter since Trump also uses it as a public forum. Even Nazis get their first amendment rights. Furthermore this opens the door for a President to turn any private space into a “public forum” by using it for official government business. The whole amicus just opens a Pandora’s box and would likely be struck down if the President cared enough to challenge it. It benefits Trump more to let this ruling stand as he attempts to muscle Twitter, Facebook, etc. into changing the hate speech rules they use to suspend conservative accounts.
paulpauper 8y ago
If Trump (or anyone) blocks you but you still want to read his tweets: Chrome incognito mode or log out of Twitter problem fixed lol
- craftyguy 8y ago
  El Presidente should not have the power to exclude certain citizens from their communications.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    I agree, and find the argument kinda funny, but is twitter really that? You can make a new account or even ghost it to see it, not like its truly barring a user.
  - jamesrom 8y ago
    You must not have read the post you are replying too.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      Yea, I read it. It was a workaround for something that shouldn't happen in the first place. I assume you read it too?
factsaresacred 8y ago
So how does this fit into the "Twitter is a private company" argument when users complain about their free speech rights after being suspended? If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution". If Twitter suspends someone for their views are they violating free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Obviously there's many ways to interact with Twitter while suspended - similarly there are many ways to read Trump's tweets while blocked. I don't have a take, I'm just curious as to what this may lead to.
- paulpauper 8y ago
  the situation becomes messy because the next question is, should any public official not be allowed to block. This includes Congressmen accounts or senators. If Twitter retains the right to revoke individual access to the site, then Trump should be able to do what he wants with this account. IF Trump were using a federally-funded social network, then that would be a different issue
- bumholio 8y ago
  > If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. Since that is clearly not true, one practical effect is that it's setting a very low bar the difficulty one should overcome before claiming they are excluded from official communication by the government. If the necessity of logging out then logging back in (or merely opening an Incognito window with a single click) is a rights violation, then surely not having any kind of access to online communication by the government is a much worse violation. So the government should either cease to use the internet or should make it available to all citizens as a basic citizen right.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Twitter is a private company. The President's Twitter Account is not a private entity, though. "If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution"." If I go into one of the President's rallies and start waving my dick around, or otherwise act indecent, I can and will be asked to leave.
allthenews 8y ago
I don't know what is more absurd: that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation, or that a private entity is being forced to operate as a public, regulated forum.
- URSpider94 8y ago
  The second one isnt happening. Nothing in this ruling puts any burden on Twitter whatsoever. It puts a burden on Trump as to how he uses it. Trump gets to pick which forum he wants to use to make public statements, but he needs to pick fora that comply with government regulations and then use them in a compliant manner.
- dexen 8y ago
  >that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation This has happened several times in the history, as new technologies became common. Newspapers, radio, (live) TV, social media. Each expansion into the new communication channel caused major change in campaigning style, and (re-)connected the candidates with the common citizen, as the new medium owners had relatively small influence on popular opinion by themselves [1]. Also each time the political old guard was caught by surprise, still focusing on the medium of yesteryear, very much like the 2016 presidential elections. It's worth noting Obama was a social media savvy candidate and to large extent his campaign pre-saged what went down in the 2016 elections. [1] IMO all the Twitters and Facebooks owners still have relatively less sway than the TV and older media.

105 points by tareqak 8y ago

I get blocking incoming messages. Why is there a feature for blocking publicly broadcast messages available even to annonymos users?

Mithorium 8y ago

Someone have a readable version? Article shows up for 250ms on my screen then disappears leaving only the reuters header, tried switching browsers and everything

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jrace 8y ago
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president’s account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on August 10 sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that had remained blocked from Trump’s @RealDonaldTrump account. The seven users who filed suit had their accounts unblocked in June. The 41 blocked users include a film producer, screenwriter, photographer and author who had criticized President Trump or his policies. At least 20 of those individuals said on Twitter that Trump had unblocked them on Tuesday. The 41 users were not a comprehensive list of those blocked by Trump. Rosie O’Donnell, a comedian, said on Twitter late Tuesday that she remained blocked. The White House did not immediately comment late Tuesday. The ruling has raised novel legal issues. The Internet Association, a trade group that represents Twitter, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, and Alphabet Inc, filed a brief in the case earlier this month that did not back Trump or the blocked users but urged the court to “limit its decision to the unique facts of this case so that its decision does not reach further than necessary or unintentionally disrupt the modern, innovative Internet.” Trump has made his Twitter account, with 54.1 million followers, an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics, preventing them from directly responding to his tweets. The U.S. Justice Department said the ruling was “fundamentally misconceived” arguing Trump’s account “belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government.” Buchwald rejected the argument that Trump’s First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact. Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. The Internet Association said the court “should make clear that this case does not implicate the overwhelming majority of social media accounts throughout the Internet.” “Despite any First Amendment status that this court might find in the ‘interactive spaces’ associated with President Trump’s account, Twitter retains authority to revoke access to both his account and the account of any user seeking to comment on President Trump’s account,” the group said. FILE PHOTO: The masthead of U.S. President Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account with a message about OPEC policy is seen on April 20, 2018. @realDonaldTrump/Handout via REUTERS It also warned “there is a considerable risk that any decision that may recognize isolated public forums on Twitter will be misunderstood to hold that Twitter, too, can be subject to First Amendment scrutiny. ...Twitter itself is not a state actor when it blocks or withdraws access to its account-holders or users, and it is therefore not subject to the First Amendment’s restraints.” Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

educationdata 8y ago

Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? Or this court ruling only works on Trump?

bcheung 8y ago
It has to do with denying citizens access to information from the government. So it would probably depend on whether public officials are using an account for official government usage or if it is personal.
mikeash 8y ago
Public officials would be fine blocking people on their personal accounts as long as they draw a clear line between their personal and official accounts. Trump ran afoul of the law here because he didn’t do that.
- psergeant 8y ago
  Despite being downvotes, this is on the money. Had he maintained some kind of separation between himself and the office on Twitter, it’d have been fine, but he announces policy change first on Twitter, for example.
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    The issue is that he had no interest in using the @potus account, because his narcissism wanted the follower bump on his personal Twitter account.
ibejoeb 8y ago
This is a legitimate question and should not be downvoted.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? If the use of their account meets certain legal criteria which make it a limited public forum, yes; that's generally true of official government accounts, whether of an office or office holder, but can be true of notionally personal accounts if used for government purposes (as the court has evidence, including White House statements, was the case for Trump's “personal” account.) Note that while Trump's Twitter account is the highest visibility case on this issue, there have been a number of similar cases regarding local government offices and officials accounts on various social media platforms with the same general result before the case about Trump's account was filed.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

chollida1 8y ago

In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time. being the two major ones pertinent to twitter. Other things like claiming "funding secured" when your board, bankers and supposed funders all claim otherwise are also bad and likely to get him in more trouble, but are not important to the twitter disclosure. The solution to this is to use the newswire like everyone else in the US stock market but if he wants to use twitter, and it looks like he may no longer be able to after the SEC is done, then he'll most likely not be able to block anyone from seeing his tweets. I'm not sure how else you can fulfill the very reasonable requirement of equal disclosure to everyone otherwise.

HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
This is pushing it sooo much that makes me wonder if you have an agenda here. Tweets can be viewed without signing in( including replies) so anyone actually has access to them. Additionally there is legal text in the Tesla shares saying "expect updates on social media".
compsciphd 8y ago
I think one can make the argument that Trump and Musk might be different. Trump by blocking users doesn't prevent the users from seeing the content (i.e. they can log out and see the content). What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president (i.e. why its a free speech issue). It's basically saying that users A, B, and C can easily engage, but by blocking D, we are going to put a road block that makes it difficult for D. In the case of Musk, if one is claiming that blocking is discriminating who can see the content, one can make the claim that this really isn't true, all blocking does is make it more difficult to interface with musk, not to see the content.
- 8y ago

bumholio 8y ago

> Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They can still comment, on their own pages, in their own articles, but their comments will not have similar visibility to the people that follow Donald Trump and related conversations. And I think the court overreached to call it a violation of the rights to free speech. Because what the commenters really want is visibility, they want to piggy back on the large audience Trump's tweets have and exploit the way Twitter's algorithm highlights such replies, especially if they are 'considered important' though their own retweets, likes etc. For example, I want to produce an one hour rant about how Donald Trump is a cretin that damages the US and the world, and have it uploaded on the White House website - an official communication tool of the US government - so that it has proper visibility. But the White House can rightfully deny that request without violating my freedom of speech. Twitter is a multi-user version of a similar software, which unlike whitehouse.gov is configured by default to allow such posts on other's users pages.

beager 8y ago
I wonder if the decision comes down to that some people have the ability to be a part of the conversation on Twitter, but not the people that Trump has blocked, and therefore that's considered unequal treatment. To follow your analogy, nobody can post their podcast on the White House's website. If Donald Trump somehow had replies completely turned off for his Twitter, I don't think a case could be made that first amendment rights were being infringed.
- bumholio 8y ago
  Well, that discrimination exists on the current White House site. I just went there and on the front page I found this article, that quotes some people friendly to Trump's policies, many of them (ironically) sourced from tweets: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/wtas-support-president-donald-j-trumps-trade-announcement-mexico/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wh https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/wtas-support... So why should these people be cited, but not others critical to the administration? Who gets to make that decision, and why can't they make a similar decision on Twitter itself?

rpiguy 8y ago

The judiciary acting against Trump in this case may ultimately work against them. This judge just invented the concept of free speech rights on the internet, even on a private platform like Twitter. I fully understand that legally this is very different the issue of Facebook or Twitter "censoring" conservatives (and as a conservative, I actually support their right as private companies to operate as they see fit), and that the judge's ruling is on the basis of access to information citing the first amendment right to free speech, but this ruling opens the door into an uncharted legal area. Once the government gets intwined in these kinds of issues there are usually unforeseen consequences.

bertil 8y ago
The amicus brief from the Internet Alliance makes that fear very clear: they demanded clarification that those decisions only apply to interactions with accounts that are clearly used as policy tool by the US Government. For me, the fact that this is the personal account and not @potus is the outlying factor. The court was explicit that, because policy was announced from that account, it made it a Government tool, subject to a lot of rules. To me, this is a smart move, warning the next President: make sure that all communications where you use the power of the office are from @potus, because otherwise, National Archive will get into your DMs. If encourages to define a line between the West and the East Wing (the personal residency) and extend it to social media.
- rpiguy 8y ago
  Yes but if the primary argument is based around the idea that everyone must have access to these “public channels” because their first amendment rights guarantee them a right to the information from the President and to be part of the conversation then a plausible argument can be made that Twitter, etc. cannot ban anyone from their site, or Facebook for that matter since Trump also uses it as a public forum. Even Nazis get their first amendment rights. Furthermore this opens the door for a President to turn any private space into a “public forum” by using it for official government business. The whole amicus just opens a Pandora’s box and would likely be struck down if the President cared enough to challenge it. It benefits Trump more to let this ruling stand as he attempts to muscle Twitter, Facebook, etc. into changing the hate speech rules they use to suspend conservative accounts.

paulpauper 8y ago

If Trump (or anyone) blocks you but you still want to read his tweets: Chrome incognito mode or log out of Twitter problem fixed lol

craftyguy 8y ago
El Presidente should not have the power to exclude certain citizens from their communications.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- conanbatt 8y ago
  I agree, and find the argument kinda funny, but is twitter really that? You can make a new account or even ghost it to see it, not like its truly barring a user.
- jamesrom 8y ago
  You must not have read the post you are replying too.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Yea, I read it. It was a workaround for something that shouldn't happen in the first place. I assume you read it too?

factsaresacred 8y ago

So how does this fit into the "Twitter is a private company" argument when users complain about their free speech rights after being suspended? If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution". If Twitter suspends someone for their views are they violating free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Obviously there's many ways to interact with Twitter while suspended - similarly there are many ways to read Trump's tweets while blocked. I don't have a take, I'm just curious as to what this may lead to.

paulpauper 8y ago
the situation becomes messy because the next question is, should any public official not be allowed to block. This includes Congressmen accounts or senators. If Twitter retains the right to revoke individual access to the site, then Trump should be able to do what he wants with this account. IF Trump were using a federally-funded social network, then that would be a different issue
bumholio 8y ago
> If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. Since that is clearly not true, one practical effect is that it's setting a very low bar the difficulty one should overcome before claiming they are excluded from official communication by the government. If the necessity of logging out then logging back in (or merely opening an Incognito window with a single click) is a rights violation, then surely not having any kind of access to online communication by the government is a much worse violation. So the government should either cease to use the internet or should make it available to all citizens as a basic citizen right.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Twitter is a private company. The President's Twitter Account is not a private entity, though. "If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution"." If I go into one of the President's rallies and start waving my dick around, or otherwise act indecent, I can and will be asked to leave.

allthenews 8y ago

I don't know what is more absurd: that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation, or that a private entity is being forced to operate as a public, regulated forum.

URSpider94 8y ago
The second one isnt happening. Nothing in this ruling puts any burden on Twitter whatsoever. It puts a burden on Trump as to how he uses it. Trump gets to pick which forum he wants to use to make public statements, but he needs to pick fora that comply with government regulations and then use them in a compliant manner.
dexen 8y ago
>that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation This has happened several times in the history, as new technologies became common. Newspapers, radio, (live) TV, social media. Each expansion into the new communication channel caused major change in campaigning style, and (re-)connected the candidates with the common citizen, as the new medium owners had relatively small influence on popular opinion by themselves [1]. Also each time the political old guard was caught by surprise, still focusing on the medium of yesteryear, very much like the 2016 presidential elections. It's worth noting Obama was a social media savvy candidate and to large extent his campaign pre-saged what went down in the 2016 elections. [1] IMO all the Twitters and Facebooks owners still have relatively less sway than the TV and older media.