131–140 of 352 posts
So Trump could still mute people, right? Seems like the reason he can't block people is because it prevents them from replying to his posts and engaging in the public conversation. Title seems a bit misleading, almost makes it sound like he has to read all of his twitter replies.
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IANAL, but yes, I think that's OK, because it's not blocking based on the content of the speech, which is the crucial part.
How is the content the crucial part? Free speech is about free speech, not discriminating on content. It is both illegal for the government to shut down leftist newspapers, and illegal for the government to shut down all newspapers. The idiocy of this is making shutting down a newspaper equivalent to twitter blocking, but if you draw the analogy, that's what you wind up with.
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I agree that it's kind of a questionable decision but my understanding of it is, people can normally post public replies to tweets- but if the user blocks you, you can't post your public reply. OK (and desirable) for most people, not ok for the government to do. There's not necessarily a perfect offline equivalent but it would sort of be like if the president tried to forbid a newspaper from running an editorial next…
> I agree that it's kind of a questionable decision I don't see what is questionable about it. Seems pretty straightforward, actually. He is an elected official who is held accountable by the public. He is widely known to make official policy statements using twitter. He can't just block citizens from reading his policy statements. That isn't how US democracy works. > I think the more interesting part of this is the…
if that was the crux of the issue, the ruling would be "stop making policy statements on twitter." The vast majority of US citizens don't use twitter and a sizable portion don't even have access to a twitter-capable device.
I am not legal expert but it makes perfect sense that any government official must not deny access to information to any citizen which is easily available to another. Blocking means other person can not see trump's tweets. I believe Trump can always mute other people. Let us consider the following scenarios : - Trump blocks only black people on Twitter. - Hawaii's missile alert systems issues a real missile alert on…
Block also makes it so people can't harass you. I think this is an important distinction. By saying you can't block someone the judge is also saying you can't ignore someone who is harassing you. Anyone who isn't logged in can still see it. They can just open an incognito window. They aren't really blocked from viewing his tweets. It's unfortunate that the 2 are tied together into the same function. This would be a m…
This is also probably moot since verified accounts reportedly have even better options for filtering out messages than normal users.
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> Drumpf On a tangent, what is the deal with the "Drumpf" thing? It was his family name some time ago, so is this just the other sides' "Barack Hussein Obama" or is there more to it?
> It was his family name some time ago, so is this just the other sides' "Barack Hussein Obama" or is there more to it? No, it's not the same thing. The Hussein thing is that the Alt-Right uses it to imply Obama being a Muslim (which he is not) and thus, by extension, a terrorist supporter/enabler. The Drumpf thing, however, is nothing more than highlighting the family origin (which Trump actually even stated himself…
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The First Amendment only blocks the government from restricting speech, not anyone else. A private company can limit speech. The government cannot cause or compel that private company to limit speech. Also it's not clear to me that Twitter has to do anything with Trump's account. The judgement is against Trump, not against Twitter. Trump isn't allowed to use the block button, but Twitter is not under any obligation t…
If that's the case, it is likely he can just continue to block people, I don't think he's going to unblock people suddenly because of this. If he is basically immune to most lawsuits (in general - I'm sure at some point something will break that line) then why would one judge's ruling have him change his behavior. He's pretty critical of judges already. On the other hand, if the judge wanted to see this change, requi…
He's not (barring reversal on appeal) immune, or this case would never have reached a judgement.
> On the other hand, if the judge wanted to see this change, requiring Twitter to both remove (his) block button and unblock all existing users (from his account only) would more likely happen.
Judges don't have unlimited freedom to arbitrarily issue orders directing labor of nonparties to a case just because they suspect s party might not respect the judgement. There are, in any case, processes for addressing failure of a party to respect a judgement, which Trump is no more immune to regarding this judgement than he is to the case resulting in the judgement.
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Nobody is forcing Trump to use Twitter. They are saying that if he uses Twitter, he must leave his tweets open to all the public and not a subset. President Trump could always choose to close his account if he finds this requirement to be too onerous.
Do his Gmail emails need to be open to all the public? His Slack messages? His Facebook posts? I don't see how anyone, president or otherwise, can't chose whom they send messages to.
This seems wrong on the face of it. The judge asks the rhetorical question of whether the logic changes based on whether he's president or not, and he answers his question with a "No". So this is saying that no public official can block others on Twitter. That seems like it's in the "suicide pact" column of rights defense, but then I'm not one that cares about Twitter personally. Just seems that plenty of other forum…
> And given that blocking is part and parcel to the app, it would seem like everyone is buying into the terms of the environment when they start using it That isn't how this works. Just because Twitter allows people to block stuff, doesn't mean Trump gets to block stuff. In a "normal" government, they'd pick a vendor with software that would let them make official policy statements in a way that complied with the law…
Put more plainly:
The judgement makes perfect sense once you understand that government officials' actions are regulated in ways that private citizens' actions are not. If a government official uses a tool designed for private citizens, his actions may still be restricted compared to what private citizens can legally do.
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If your account gets banned, you're unable to communicate with the government (since it is established that Twitter is the president's official communication medium). Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment?
You can still communicate with the government using official channels and you can still view his tweets. His account is basically write-only so you’re only losing your ability to send messages which won’t be read.