By One of the social networks that helped Trump rise to power has come back to bite him after a judge has ruled it unconstitutional for the President to block people on Twitter.
Yesterday District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that Twitter serves as a “designated public forum” and is therefore protected under First Amendment rights. Buchwald therefore determined that the “exclusion” of U.S. citizens from the platform constitutes a breach of those rights.
The claim was brought by seven Twitter users who alleged that the President had unlawfully restricted their access to his feed.
Politico reports that, "Buchwald wrote that Trump and one of his aides, White House director of social media Dan Scavino, cannot point to the president’s own First Amendment interests as justification for blocking the individuals — an argument his legal team had made."
“We’re pleased with the court’s decision, which reflects a careful application of core First Amendment principles to government censorship on a new communications platform,” commented Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the group. “The president’s practice of blocking critics on Twitter is pernicious and unconstitutional, and we hope this ruling will bring it to an end.”
