>>> Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. I think both the question within the context of current law, and the wider question

>>> Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. I think both the question within the context of current law, and the wider question of "what should be true, beyond current law" is a very interesting one that deserves more thought than a simple "it should not be possible" On the face of it, it sounds like a noble principle. But even if we sidestep the issue of harassing, it raises the question why it should be so. If it is about the citizen being heard by the representative? That's not happening anyways. For a reasonably powerful representative, a social media coordinator will likely pre-filter what they see (and should - I'd like my representatives to work, not read their twitter feed all day) If it is about having a public voice, you can reasonably argue that being blocked by an individual doesn't deprive you of your public voice, even if you can't talk to a single specific person via a single specific medium. If it is about having the platform granted by being in front of the wider audience the representative has, I'm not sure that currently is a guaranteed right, and I'm not sure it needs to or should. The one point I find most naturally resonating is the idea that public representatives should be afforded limited to no ability speaking to a semi-public audience without a recording of what they said. This would suggest shadow-banning instead of blocking as the most useful tool. You can of course argue that it's the state censoring a private citizen, but I'm not sure that holds in current circumstances. The state is allowed to censor in many well-circumscribed circumstances based on harm vs benefit. And even if we accept that this is censorship, we still have the second important question, does a representative speaking on social media function as an individual, or as a representative of the state. (And I'd expect that if we pick door number two here, we'll sooner or later get to interesting questions like "can you commingle private and public function", and more specifically "can you commingle governmental and campaign function") There's a lot of (important) nuance that gets lost when we phrase this in terms of absolutes.