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Twitter Users Blocked By Trump Sue, Claim @realDonaldTrump Is Public Forum (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A handful of Twitter users, backed by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, claiming their constitutional rights are being violated because the president has blocked them from his @realDonaldTrump handle. The suit claims that Trump's Twitter feed is a public forum and an official voice of the president. Excluding people from reading or replying to his tweets -- especially because they tweeted critical comments -- amounts to a First Amendment breach, according to the lawsuit.
"The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another," according to the lawsuit (PDF) filed in New York federal court. "Defendants' viewpoint-based blocking of the Individual Plaintiffs from the @realDonaldTrump account infringes the Individual Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. It imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their participation in a designated public forum," the suit says. "It imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their right to access statements that Defendants are otherwise making available to the public at large. It also imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their right to petition the government for redress of grievances."
"The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another," according to the lawsuit (PDF) filed in New York federal court. "Defendants' viewpoint-based blocking of the Individual Plaintiffs from the @realDonaldTrump account infringes the Individual Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. It imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their participation in a designated public forum," the suit says. "It imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their right to access statements that Defendants are otherwise making available to the public at large. It also imposes an unconstitutional restriction on their right to petition the government for redress of grievances."
Trump is the symptom, not the disease. If we succeed in getting rid of Cheeto Benito, the 63 million voters who elected him will just elect somebody even less ethical, less intelligent, and less qualified.
The real question is, how can we disenfranchise 63 million heavily-armed idiots without starting a civil war? If we do nothing, these Bible-thumping assmonkeys will destroy our country as certainly as any civil war would.
I think they are also upset by the fact they cannot "reply" to @realDonaldTrump when banned. It's not good enough to see what he says but they want to feel important by replying to his tweets.
"members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another"
The interesting part of this case is that it most likely will be decided upon whether or not the court system considers Trump's Twitter account to be the official word of the POTUS, or if it's considered a private account. His own staff has already muddied the water by stating that his tweets are official words of the administration. And his POTUS account is practically silent in comparison to his own personal account. I don't personally have a horse in this race, but I am quite interested in the outcome because either way the decision goes, it's going to be a significant decision.
Sarbonn's blog: http://www.sarbonn.com/blog
You know what else used to be wholly private? ATT. We decided it was in the best interests of the nation to destroy that privacy and make it fair for all. There is no reason we cant do the same to online discourse. Further, Twitter is only reachable by crossing public right of ways. Being 'private' isnt as set in stone as you think.
Good-bye
I don't think that's going to work. The White House and most if not all Senators and Congressmen have web pages for many years and have never given up the right to control what goes on them.
I don't see how that's relevant (unless you mean things like Facebook).
Free speech does not mean that the government has to publish whatever you want to say. When the president gives a speech he does not have to give up the microphone to you.
No, but if he creates a bulletin board for people to post comments about his speech he can't take down all the ones he disagrees with.
Further, if this actually got to court they could point out that the plaintiffs have multiple other avenues to having their voiced heard. There is no constitutional reason it has to be on the president's twitter feed.
Big Meh
The first amendment doesn't work like that, you can't do viewpoint discrimination just because the person could publish their views somewhere else.
That being said I'm still not convinced Twitter does qualify as a public forum. I find the claims about being barred from reading the Tweets to be unconvincing (it's pretty easy to view the tweets even if blocked), but being unable to reply is another matter. Being unable to reply to @RealDonaldTrump really does affect your ability to participate in the public dialogue.
There's also a lot of Politicians who have Facebook pages, I don't see why a ruling on Trump's Twitter account wouldn't apply to their Facebook pages as well.
I stole this Sig
He can do so, in private, among friends. (Well, he can't, but Presidents whi had friends can) In public, he is the president. He took an oath to be the President for the next 4 years, not 4 minus the times he declares "hey ... I am not the President right now, OK?" It doesn't work that way.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit have no right, First Amendment or otherwise, for the general public to be forcibly exposed to their responses to Trump's blather.
They can even set up a public mirror of his tweets, and respond there, if they want. Call it @realSmallHands or something, although that's probably taken.
if the POTUS offers 'the citizens' in general a back-channel to reach the POTUS (ie, a reply button) - but then denies it selectively based on personal whim, THAT is the problem that we are discussing.
if he made it broadcast-only, like classic old-school one-way media, then no one has a reply button. that's how things were up until we had this 'series of tubes' appear and, well, change everything.
small-hands wants to silence his critics and make his 'channel' appear to be nothing but good feelings and support from 'all' the people. and by deleting the ones you don't agree with, you censor the public. no other way to put it, you censor the public's replies based on arbitrary political criteria.
do you really think that's a good thing? is this the kind of country and society we want?
if he's allowing any comments, he must allow them all.
stay classy, donald. (sigh)
--
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