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Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

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Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#321

Post by cyansmoker »

xienze wrote: post #194
aksss wrote: post #64

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…

> 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 Well, the important part is that the judge stuck it to Trump. That’s really all that matters to some people.

Let's forget about how polarizing he is for one minute: I would make the argument that he is the one who made his Twitter feed a public forum when he encouraged people to follow him to get information. It follows that public discourse is now taking place where the tools allow people to respond.

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#322

Post by icebraining »

paulddraper wrote: post #273
amarkov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can certainly send private emails, Slack messages, or even Twitter DMs. What he can't do is publicly broadcast his tweets to the world, and then exclude people from them on political grounds.

> publicly broadcast his tweets to the world, and then exclude people Are they really public in that case? The President can share information with 1 person, 2 people, 3 people, or 336m people (the number of Twitter users). But he can't share information with 335m people?

It should be noted that the problem identified by the judge was the fact that blocking prevents users from replying to the tweets, therefore restricting their speech.

That said, excluding certain people from official communications based on their opinions might be illegal too: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/us/politics/white-house-b...

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#323

Post by icebraining »

Retra wrote: post #306
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a government official and decided to host a public event at a private property which I paid for, where the private property said no women allowed (say it was a private club which allowed to do such), could I use that rules to prevent women from attending the event? Or would the rules of the private property either block me from utilizing them at all or be overridden in regards to my event?

Depends on how a judge rules. You could be required to find another venue or to admit women regardless. Either way, the fact that it is a private rule means it is not a public law. The government doesn't have to abide by laws you just made up for yourself on a whim. If I say "no shoes allowed on my private property" the police aren't forced to comply with that, so why would a government official at an event be requir…

The police can ignore your rules in certain special cases when they have a legal reason to enter your property without your consent. In normal circumstances, you can certainly deny them entrance if they don't take off their shoes.

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#324

Post by aaronbrethorst »

JasonFruit wrote: post #215

Wait, any public official? So the elected school board members in my town can't block me on Twitter if I go on crazy racist tirades, as long as they're political in nature? How about the dogcatcher? He can't block PETA animal rights screed accounts? And doesn't being forced to let cranks interact with prominent accounts increase those cranks' visibility? Is that forcing the prominent person to promote speech with whi…

You should try attending a city council session sometime. You'd be amazed at what council members put up with.

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#325

Post by ubernostrum »

paulddraper wrote: post #317
ubernostrum wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judge in this case stated that one of the crucial questions was, and I quote: to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, ‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed The judge reached an answer of "no" to that question. You appear to be arguing either that the judge did not reach such an answer, or that the judge was an…

I am arguing that the judge's conclusion was not soundly based on law. I am open to being shown to be incorrect.

I haven't had a chance to read the full ruling, but it seems fairly obvious that if a government official designates a particular two-way communications channel as a place for communicating official statements (the Trump administration claims his Twitter account is such a channel), then the government official is subject to some restrictions on how that channel can be policed.

There was a case last year[1] where a federal judge in Virginia made a similar ruling after a politician banned someone from commenting on an official Facebook page due to not liking the opinions the commenter expressed.

And the general principle seems to be that the First Amendment does not allow government officials to silence their critics on an official communications channel; they can choose which channels to use, and refuse to open certain others, but once they set up such a communications channel they cannot discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of critics' speech in such channel. To do so implicates not just freedom of speech, but also the First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances (i.e., if the government official bans you from the communication channels you'd use to state your grievances, how can you exercise that right?).

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/politician-dinge...

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#326

Post by Marysville »

Andre_Wanglin wrote: post #302
Marysville wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be akin to saying you can access your President by giving up your passport. I can't believe people are defending this.

If you truly believe having to log out to read a tweet is akin to giving up your passport, you are insane.

Yes, losing passport is exactly that. Logging out makes me unable to access normal abilities a twitter user(american citizen) has. If passport analogy doesn't suit you, try incarceration.

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#327

Post by zaarn »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #295
freeone3000 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the right to petition our government to redress grievances. As a public official, the bar for harassment is higher - for the President, I don't believe anything sent over twitter could be harassment.

Death threats?

I wonder how many death threats Trump receives over Twitter and if that makes any significant portion of the total amounts of threats. (Plus now you entered the territory of "threaten a public official with death" which gets the high ranking legal authorities into gear)

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#328

Post by icebraining »

echotango wrote: post #316
anigbrowl wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But twitter is working with the government in hosting the tweets and thus assumes responsibility to provide a public square No. No it doesn't. Allowing the government to use your service does not thereby make it part of the government.

So you're saying if fox news set up a 'private' website to host trump's posts and only allowed pro-trump people to comment that wouldnt violate free speech because it is a private website and the government itself isn't banning people who criticize it.

Fox News wouldn't violate the first amendment. At most, the POTUS might be prevented from using that website.

(Nitpick: "free speech" is a general philosophical concept; we're talking about the 1st Amendment, which is a particular application of one of many views on that concept)

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#329

Post by Broken_Hippo »

JasonFruit wrote: post #215

Wait, any public official? So the elected school board members in my town can't block me on Twitter if I go on crazy racist tirades, as long as they're political in nature? How about the dogcatcher? He can't block PETA animal rights screed accounts? And doesn't being forced to let cranks interact with prominent accounts increase those cranks' visibility? Is that forcing the prominent person to promote speech with whi…

No. The public official can still mute them so they don't see they. The public official doesn't have to interact. But they cannot keep someone from accessing their feed when they use it for politics. They still have the right to access the information directly.

These same people can right letters, after all. The politician doesn't have to read these letters nor respond to them. But in doing so, they can't keep people from sending letters nor stop them from getting information about the office.

In short: When they use their tech for political motives, the politician's want to block people doesn't overturn the people's right to get information from the source, be it twitter or a press release on the government's website.

Re: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

#330

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Grimm665 wrote: post #166
abiox wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if that was the crux of the issue, the ruling would be "stop making policy statements on twitter." i don't think that sort of thing is within the purview of the court. > The vast majority of US citizens don't use twitter and a sizable portion don't even have access to a twitter-capable device. afaik there isn't a way to make statements in a manner that will reach all citizens.

> afaik there isn't a way to make statements in a manner that will reach all citizens. I don't think Clinton and all the presidents before him had trouble making statements without the use of Twitter.

Most of which didn't have such a tool available to them. They did tend to use whatever technology they had available (radio, newspapers, television, trains, telegrams....). And they haven't all gone smoothly either, nor did they reach all eligible voters.
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