President Trump cannot block his critics from the Twitter feed he regularly uses to communicate with the public, a federal appeals court said Tuesday, in a case with implications for how elected officials nationwide interact with constituents on social media.
The decision from the New York-based appeals court upholds an earlier ruling that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked individual users critical of the president or his policies.
“The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees,” wrote Judge Barrington D. Parker in the unanimous decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
[Trump’s Twitter habits are affecting how local politicians behave online]
Trump’s Twitter habits through his @realDonaldTrump account were central to the case brought by seven people blocked after posting disapproving comments in 2017.
The First Amendment prevents the government from blocking or excluding views it disagrees with in what is known as “viewpoint discrimination.” The Supreme Court has not directly addressed how the law applies to expanding digital spaces for public debate, and the case involving the president’s account — with millions of followers — was a high-profile legal test.
Elected officials throughout the country are also learning to navigate how those principles apply to their social media accounts. The ruling from the New York-based appeals court echoed an earlier decision from the Richmond-based appeals court involving the Facebook page of a Virginia politician.
This is a developing story.
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