Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block critics from following him on Twitter
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Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block critics from following him on Twitter
August 20, 2020, 12:31 PM EDTWASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is taking his effort to block his critics on Twitter to the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department on Thursday asked the high court to review a federal appeals court ruling that found the president's practice of blocking critics violates the First Amendment.
Trump, who now has more than 85 million Twitter followers, prompted the court battle in 2017 by blocking some of the social media company's users from following his Twitter account . Seven of them went to court, charging that he was seeking to "suppress dissent."
A federal district court ruled against the president in 2018, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit followed suit in 2019. Earlier this year, the full appeals court refused to rehear the case.
Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall told the justices Thursday that Trump's account was created in 2009 when he was a private citizen. Wall said the president has continued to use it for both personal and official pronouncements.
President Donald Trump's Twitter feed is shown on a computer screen.
"The president uses his account to speak to the public, not to give members of the public a forum to speak to him and among themselves," Wall said.
"Denying him the power to exclude third parties’ accounts from his personal account – a power that every other owner of a Twitter account possesses – would deter holders of his office from using new technology to efficiently communicate to a broad public audience."
The president tweets regularly at @realDonaldTrump, often multiple times a day. Since establishing the account, he has tweeted more than 54,000 times – an average of about 13 per day. Typical are his rants against opponents , such as one unleashed Wednesday night after Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris' acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention.
"By ignoring the critical distinction between the president’s (sometimes) official statements on Twitter and his always personal decision to block respondents from his own account, the opinion blurs the line between state action and private conduct," Wall said in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.
"The result of the court of appeals’ novel ruling will be to jeopardize the ability of public officials – from the president of the United States to a village councilperson – to insulate their social-media accounts from harassment, trolling, or hate speech without invasive judicial oversight."
Typical of the seven Twitter users who brought the case in 2017 was Rebecca Buckwalter of Washington, D.C. After Trump tweeted "Sorry folks, but if I would have relied on the Fake News of CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS washpost or
nytimes, I would have had ZERO chance winning WH,” she replied: “To be fair you didn’t win the WH: Russia won it for you.”
Those blocked from a Twitter account cannot read tweets, respond to them directly, or contribute to the comment threads.
After the 2018 district court ruling, the White House unblocked the seven individuals who brought the case, along with others blocked because of their viewpoints. But it did not unblock those who could not specify the tweet that caused Trump to block them, or those blocked before he became president.
“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,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which represents the plaintiffs.
The Supreme Court likely will decide this fall whether to hear the case next year.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block critics on Twitter
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What a whiny little bitch!!!!!!!!!!
pussy boy
Been a rough week for this pussy-n-chief, and it ain't over yet!
I know 12 year old girls that can kick ass. Trump is a two year old toddler.
His followers (a lot of them) are paid followers.
There are a lot of people on Twitter who block anyone they don't want to see their posts.
Know any of those?
How many of those are considered a presidential account and a way for the president to get information out to the public?
Doesn't matter. He can get his information out without the never Trumpers negative feedback on his account. You know he doesn't reply to them and they just clutter up the message..
If it is considered an official channel, then how can he block people from seeing it?
tRump cannot handle criticism of any kind. Asks the supreme court to let him block critics.
Whiny little bitch.
I would think the Supreme Court has better things to do than dealing with this whiny little bitch.
.... We have a winner!
I'll reread the link but I don't think he wants to block them from seeing it just responding to it.
You'll have to ask Ender. He brought up the "get information out to the public".
I was talking about tRumpturds' 'message' whatever that 'message' is.
I don't think that's the way it works.
You realize that makes him an even bigger tittie-baby, right?
I love it! Tittie-baby!
LOL!
The whiny little bitch wants to be able to send his lunatic rants and raves and no one should be allowed to respond to his lunacy. Except his ass kissers.
What he puts out could fertilize every field in the US.
So effing what? This is about Trump being a Twitter tittie-baby. Like so many of his supporters, he can dish all day long, but clearly can't take it.
"I don't want mean people saying mean things to me!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Like most whiny little bitches, he can dish it out but can't take it.
MEMO TO TRUMP - Don't like what you see on Twitter, then deactivate your account.