Trump Can Block People On Twitter If He Wants, Administration Says (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The administration of President Donald Trump is scoffing at a lawsuit by Twitter users who claim in a federal lawsuit that their constitutional rights are being violated because the president has blocked them from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle. "It would send the First Amendment deep into uncharted waters to hold that a president's choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter -- a privately run website that, as a central feature of its social-media platform, enables all users to block particular individuals from viewing posts -- violate the Constitution." That's part of what Michael Baer, a Justice Department attorney, wrote to the New York federal judge overseeing the lawsuit Friday. In addition, the Justice Department said the courts are powerless to tell Trump how he can manage his private Twitter handle, which has 35.8 million followers.

"To the extent that the President's management of his Twitter account constitutes state action, it is unquestionably action that lies within his discretion as Chief Executive; it is therefore outside the scope of judicial enforcement," Baer wrote. (PDF) Baer added that an order telling Trump how to manage his Twitter feed "would raise profound separation-of-powers concerns by intruding directly into the president's chosen means of communicating to millions of Americans."

Comments

SubjectIsSubject

[p0p0]

Of course he can. It's his personal account.
Within seconds of a tweet being posted, he'll have hundreds of replies, almost instantaneously, from the same people consistently, who always manage to get out 6 part tweets within a few seconds of each other.

Spam, essentially. And what do we do with spam? We block it.
Admittedly that's how most people deal with @realDonaldTrump anyway.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[Baron_Yam]

I think it is very legitimately arguable that Trump's Twitter account is more official than a White House press briefing. As such, blocking Americans from it is probably not allowed.

Trump's account should be using the mute feature rather than the block feature (though the Twitter mute function seems pretty weak nearly to the point of ineffectiveness), or Trump should stop using Twitter as a presidential communications platform.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be viewed more like the press room where official announcements are given to the media. The general public does not have access to this room during press briefings, but they do gain access to the content though the press. Just as I am sure a disruptive member of the press would be removed and possibly banned from attending future press conferences.

So in much the same way if you are being disruptive on twitter you get banned as well. You'll almost certainly still be able to gain access to the contents of tweets though an alternate means, or you know just make a new twitter account.

Re:SubjectIsSubject

[Solandri]

As long as he doesn't use it to:

• have secret discussions about things which are supposed to leave an auditable paper trail because they affect policy,
• delete messages which are subpoenaed because they could be relevant to a criminal investigation,
• send or receive classified materials over an unclassified network,

he can use a private service as much as he wants. Since the way Twitter works is to make anything he posts public, the first two can't happen. He can only get in trouble with it if he uses it to illegally reveal classified materials.

Its funny how,

[arbiter1]

ALl they have to do it SIGN OUT and they can see what he post's. Its not like he banned from the internet or from the site completely. Just another smear campaign against the president they don't like.

Re:Its funny how,

[swillden]

Fuck you, lap dog apologist

You, sir, are the problem.

Oh, I thing the GP is wrong. Trump is using his Twitter account as an official communications mechanism, in fact arguably it's the official White House communication channel, given the number of times Trump has used it to overrule his official press secretary in official white house press conferences. I also think Trump is an incompetent, narcissistic blowhard. With small hands.

But your style of response is increasingly common, on both sides of the aisle. Unthinking, unreasoning, reflexive bile directed against anyone you believe disagrees with you. There can be no reasoned debate, which means there is absolutely no possibility of identifying common ground or working towards agreement, or even compromise. You and your kind are a serious threat to democracy.

Re: And then reality.....

[Baron_Yam]

>Ruth Bader Ginsburg us going to fuck Trump over, wait and see.

That's right. Let some else do it!

Or you could take responsibility (assuming you are American). It doesn't matter how you voted - your society and your system put Trump into the presidency. That requires a lot of tedious grass roots politics to address. And not the "kill those filthy Republicans" kind of adversarial actions that ultimately make things worse.

You need better education. You need to crush your religious right fanatics, and stomp on the resurgence of your 'alt-right'. Then you need to figure out how they felt so threatened they turned rabid in the first place, and fix that.

And don't ever, ever ally yourself with their kind again to give your political party an edge in an election. That means Republicans need to ditch the religious nuts who haven't discovered fire yet, and the Democrats have to disavow the right-think lefty fanatics who will try to ruin you for not agreeing with their latest lies.

Elections aren't a game where you celebrate a win, they're supposed to be a process to help you select legislative representatives to lead your nation.