Judge Orders Trump to Stop Blocking Twitter Users

[Chance]

The implications of this make my head hurt. From Ars Technica:

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Donald Trump's use of the Twitter block button violated the First Amendment. The ruling has implications for any government official—federal, state, or local—who uses Twitter or other social media platforms to communicate with the public.

....

The main effect of blocking someone is that that person's tweets no longer show up in the blocker's timeline. No one disputes that Trump has the right to do that if he wants. But blocking someone also works in the other direction: if Trump blocks another user, that user can't see Trump's tweets and (as a consequence) can't reply to them. And that, ruled Naomi Buchwald, a New York Federal judge, raises a constitutional problem.

The courts have long held that if the government creates a "public forum"—like a park, lecture hall, or street corner—that it must make the forum available to all speakers, regardless of their viewpoint. A city government can't say that only Republicans, Christians, or vegetarians are allowed to hold rallies in the town square, and it can't blacklist activists with a history of criticizing the mayor.

....

If Donald Trump blocks someone, that person loses the opportunity to reply to Trump tweets and have their tweet show up underneath them. They also lose the ability to retweet Trump tweets.

Buchwald's ruling concludes that the "interactive space for replies and retweets" surrounding each Donald Trump tweet should be considered a public forum under First Amendment law. As a result, blocking these users from replying to and retweeting Trump tweets violated the First Amendment.

That seems like a pretty big stretch, but she does kind of have a point. Similar reasoning was used to keep a Virginia politician from blocking critical constituents on Facebook, so such decisions aren't unprecedented.

[RevolverRob]

I like this ruling. It's nuanced, specific, and embraces the reality of the present, by invoking the precedent of the past.

[Chance]

I like this ruling. It's nuanced, specific, and embraces the reality of the present, by invoking the precedent of the past.

I'm ambivalent, but most of my concerns are related to privacy and what exactly constitutes a "public forum." I would argue that the publicly-accessible social media profile of a reality TV star constitutes a "public forum." But given that surveillance in the economy of the Internet, and far, far more data about ourselves than we would ever expect are accessible by the public (e.g., "open source"), I'm not sure how we would even define "public."

For instance, if a person aspiring to a political office were to post something in 'The Coterie Club,' (which is accessible to any person who is a PF contributor, but is explicitly intended not to be accessible by just anyone who wanders in from Google or elsewhere [@Tom_Jones, please correct me if I'm talking out of my ass]) how do the courts interpret that? It's a walled community, but anyone can access it. So is that a "public forum"?

I'd like to hear lawyers interpret the legalese.

[Totem Polar]

I like this ruling. It's nuanced, specific, and embraces the reality of the present, by invoking the precedent of the past.

As well, Trump owns neither his Twitter account, nor would any elected official "own’ their FB account; my undestanding is that twitter and FB own them.

Still, it makes my head hurt too.

[Ed L]

What bothers me about this more than anything else is that it suggests that Donald Trump actually is spending any time reading other people's twitter comments rather than simply posting his own tweets and then going on with his presidential business which should leave him little time for twitter interaction.

Mind you, I do not have my own twitter account. I have a few people's twitter accounts that I have bookmarked that I look at from time to time. So for all I know when he logs onto twitter to tweet, he may be confronted by a lot of annoying comments and may just choose to block them.

[Grey]

I completely agree with this ruling. Donald Trump uses twitter as a forum to air his thoughts and policy. He should not be able to limit the viewing of this material, I mean for fucks sake it is supposed to be recorded by the library of congress.

[BehindBlueI's]

On the other hand, if Trump's goal were merely to get annoying users to stop bothering him, he could accomplish that goal just as well using the mute button. This button prevents tweets from muted accounts from showing up in Trump's timeline and notifications, but it doesn't prevent muted users from replying to and retweeting Trump's tweets. The fact that Trump chose to block users instead suggests that his goal was to prevent them from communicating with others.

Ok, so did he actually block people? That seems to indicate he (or someone on his behalf) actually is reading the messages.

So he can mute people but not block them, he can choose not to receive but can't choose who receives his messages? I'm ok with that. I'm surprised it's an issue, but I'm ok with it.

[ssb]

For instance, if a person aspiring to a political office were to post something in 'The Coterie Club,' (which is accessible to any person who is a PF contributor, but is explicitly intended not to be accessible by just anyone who wanders in from Google or elsewhere [@Tom_Jones, please correct me if I'm talking out of my ass]) how do the courts interpret that? It's a walled community, but anyone can access it. So is that a "public forum"?

I suppose the distinction is that with Twitter, a politician is kind of putting up one of those goofy politics bulletin board things one sees at colleges, something they want passers by to read and perhaps comment upon whereas something like this forum is simply the politician participating in a private discussion. In the second example, the politician isn't creating a venue for people to discuss things -- he or she is simply participating in a behind-closed-doors discussion, and I don't believe participation would equal forum creation. In the first scenario I can see a court saying "no, the President doesn't get to tell people with certain viewpoints they don't get to play."

I do not see a court saying it's a First Amendment violation to participate in a private discussion at a semi-private venue. But then again, were a court to decide creating a forum thread is an equivalent to a Twitter page (creates a forum for 1A purposes), that would implicate the First Amendment. But, I don't know that the issue would be equivalent, given that this hypothetical politician would not have administrative control over who sees what (likely not a moderator).

[UNM1136]

Yeah, no. The government didn't create the twitter venue. It is wholly owned by a private company who can delete any account for any reason, or no reason at all. I am tired of Trumps tweets, and could care less who he blocks. This is just like those calling the whole take a knee movement as a First Amendment issue. Your rights are abbreviated by when and where they are exercised. The .gov is constitutionally prohibited from interfering with your constitutional rights, but as a contractual matter you do not have the same rights on your employer's time, or on another's property. How many of you don't carry at work because company policy makes it a firing offense? At work I am prohibited from engaging in political speech if I am on the clock. Heck, my 4th Amendment rights are contractually abridged as my bosses can search my locker at any time, for no reason, without a warrant. My 5th Amendment rights are abbreviated during internal affairs questioning under Garrity (I am required under conditions of employment in the course of an internal affairs investigation to answer all questions truthfully or be terminated, which in criminal matters is coercive and grounds to have all susequent evidence suppressed, as well as the statement. In an internal affairs investigation all evidence gained after a coerced statement is useable against you). Do you believe you have to allow BLM to protest on your front lawn beause they have the right to peacably assemble and freedom of speech?

While the ruling seems logical on its face, it stems from a false premise, therefore, logically, cannot be correct. Each twitter user agrees to twitter's terms and conditions , or twitter can close and delete your account should you violate the terms and conditions. Or twitter can close your account because an unkown, unaccountable admin arbitrarily decided that you don't need to be tweeting. This is a private company, and by the ability to close or delete your account denies you access to their services. I seriously doubt the same judge would rule that twitter denying you access to thier services is a violation of your First Amendment rights.

pat

[Drang]

So what are the implications for Twitter and Facebook shadowbanning "conservatives"?