http://fortune.com/2018/08/29/trump-twitter-unblock/ Trump Just Unblocked at Least 20 More Twitter Users Earlier this year, some of the targets of his blocking took the case to court, suggesting that it was a violation of their free speech rights under the First Amendment. The judge overseeing the case agreed, and in early June, Trump complied, unblocking some, but not all, of his critics. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University brought this fact to the attention of the Justice Department, sending them a list of 41 accounts that continued to be blocked on Aug. 10. Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute, explained that “as the district court has held, the First Amendment prohibits the president from blocking Twitter users simply because they’ve criticized him. Given that ruling, the president and his aides should unblock all of the Twitter users who have been blocked from the @realDonaldTrump account on the basis of viewpoint.” The 41 individuals in the list are far from a complete account of those blocked, but as of Tuesday, at least 20 of them were released from Trump Twitter purgatory. Among the 41 are film producers, an author, and a photographer—all of whom had criticized Trump or his policies in some way.
inb4 twitter censoring concern trolls: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/poli...p-blocking-tweets-unconstitutional/index.html DOJ asks appeals court to reconsider ruling that Trump's Twitter blocking violates Constitution (CNN)The Justice Department asked a federal court of appeals on Friday to reconsider a case where President Donald Trump was told he couldn't legally block Twitter users from seeing his tweets. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals has not yet said if it would rehear the case. The request comes following a three-judge appellate panel having decided in July that Trump blocking users on Twitter from following or interacting with his account handle @realDonaldTrump was unconstitutional.
#Priorities #TaxesAtWork https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-asks-block-twitter-critics/ Trump asks the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics on his personal Twitter account President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account. The administration said in a high-court filing Thursday that Trump's @realdonaldtrump account, with more than 85 million followers, is his personal property, and argued that blocking people from it is akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents' yard signs on their front lawns. "President Trump's ability to use the features of his personal Twitter account, including the blocking function, are independent of his presidential office," acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote, urging the justices to review the case. The federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Mr. Trump uses the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature. It held that Mr. Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint. A decision about whether even to hear the case is not likely before the November election. The case grew out of a challenge brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued on behalf of seven individuals blocked by Mr. Trump after criticizing his policies. Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director, said the justices should decline to take up Mr. Trump's appeal. "This case stands for a principle that is fundamental to our democracy and basically synonymous with the First Amendment: government officials can't exclude people from public forums simply because they disagree with their political views," Jaffer said in a statement. The administration argued in its appeal that the Supreme Court, not lower courts, "should decide where to draw the line between the President's personal decisions and official conduct." The pace of the case was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by Mr. Trump's decision to ask the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling by a three-judge panel. The court refused to do so by a 7-2 vote in March. Two Trump appointees, Judges Michael H. Park and Richard J. Sullivan, were the only members of the court to side with the president. The Supreme Court extended its deadline to file an appeal from 90 days to 150 days when it shut the building to the public and abandoned in-person meetings because of the virus outbreak.
If you log out you can still the tweets Trump posts....this is a complete waste of money and time by pussies who got blocked... I guarantee you they got blocked because they posted some shit to his thread. Twitter is not mandated by the Constitution and since you can log out and still see the posts you are not beind denied shit...just the freedom to post garbage.
Isn't freedom to post garbage what the 1st amendment is all about? The argument here is that Trump is a government official. Government officials using private companies to drive policy and/or conduct official businesses infringe on the 1st amendment rights of others when they call for Twitter to ban or block dissent. If this was a council meeting open to public opinion and officials banned some people from attending and express their opinions, they would run into similar trouble. If government wants to use private outlets to discuss policy, what's to stop Congress from renting Trump tower to keep the press out? Now, if Twitter decided to be Trump biased and took to banning dissent by their own accord, we'd likely be having a different conversation.
The problem is there are numerous outlets to reach the President and if people are cursing him out or calling him names or other things and they want to block them from the account, they are not prevented from expressing their 1st Amendment right. If a reporter stands up in the press briefing and says "Trump you are killing Americans with your mentally challenged policies" they would be removed and maybe not allowed back in. Does not stop them from expressing their views, just in that specific forum. Trump is using Twitter to express his own fucktarded views so Twitter should actually police what he says as well, not just his followers. All messages of the WH should only come from the Spokesperson or Press Office. Twitter should clamp down on his twitter if Trump wants to use it like a private citizen or use it to illegally leverage the power of the WH. I think a POTUS twitter account should not allow any posting or retweeting period. That will nip all this shit in the bud.