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Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter

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21–30 of 352 posts

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

#21
post #8

Has the judge read some of the comments being made? Absolute craziness in there. Some accounts should absolutely be blocked, they are repeatedly spamming and saying things you would never say in a meeting face to face. -EDIT- Funny that my comment is being down-voted. Seen everyone wants to moderate comments. If someone says something you don't like on your personal page, you should be able to stop that. You've just…

I guess the issue would be what happens when these comments are said face to face.

If they are punishable, they should be, wether done on twitter or face to face.

I they are not, they shouldn’t be banned, as you wouldn’t ban them from the public place IRL.

Note that anyone can still mute them, just as you can ignore people IRL.

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

#22
post #6
post #2

Don’t understand this. Blocking a person does not prevent the followers of said person to see the conversation , thus it’s not a public forum?

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 think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's "personal" twitter account is an official government instrument.

Didn't the administration state that Trump's tweets are official statements a while back? That might be a big reason why.

Edit: Yup, they did.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/trump-tweets-officia...

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

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they ll probably implement something like "you are banned from all twitter except trump"

That seems like cruel and unusual punishment.

but it's an easy way to deal with the trolls who will go after twitter for "blocking their access to the president"

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

#24

Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment, since that prevents them from accessing the same "public square" this ruling is protecting their access to.

The first amendment doesn't apply to Twitter (the company). It applies to governments.

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

#25

Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment, since that prevents them from accessing the same "public square" this ruling is protecting their access to.

Nope, Twitter is not a governmental organization, therefore they're not subject to the same restrictions as Trump, who is a public official.

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

#27
post #6
post #2

Don’t understand this. Blocking a person does not prevent the followers of said person to see the conversation , thus it’s not a public forum?

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've noticed there are a lot of rude replies under most of Trumps tweets. I'd think it would be normal to block that kind of thing but I guess it's an odd situation - Twitter wasn't really designed for the president of the US.

For example - just the most recent https://twitter.com/ronrobiins/status/999283009957318656 - presidential ain't what it used to be.

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

#28
post #8

Has the judge read some of the comments being made? Absolute craziness in there. Some accounts should absolutely be blocked, they are repeatedly spamming and saying things you would never say in a meeting face to face. -EDIT- Funny that my comment is being down-voted. Seen everyone wants to moderate comments. If someone says something you don't like on your personal page, you should be able to stop that. You've just…

Free speech rights apply to more than just those words one would say face to face.

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

#29

Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment, since that prevents them from accessing the same "public square" this ruling is protecting their access to.

1st isn't the right to hearing, it's the right to speech (but not specifically speaking on Twitter)

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

#30
post #14

So, would it be okay for Trump's YouTube channel to prevent any comment from being made? That's a feature of YouTube. Might need to enable that for Twitter.

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.
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