From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Trump can’t block his critics on Twitter, judge rules
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleUS President Donald Trump violated the US Constitution by blocking Twitter users who disagree with him, a federal judge rules in a case closely watched for implications for online free speech.
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald says the blocking of Trump critics — which prevent them from seeing and interacting with the president’s tweets — violated the free speech rights of those users guaranteed in the constitution’s First Amendment.
In a 75-page opinion, the New York federal judge says the users “were indisputably blocked as a result of viewpoint discrimination” and that this was “impermissible under the First Amendment.”
The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of Twitter users and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
The lawsuit contended that because Trump uses Twitter for a variety of policy announcements, his Twitter account is “a designated public forum” that cannot exclude people due to their political views.
— AFP
The Times of Israel Community.