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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

#221

Post by daveguy »

xienze wrote: post #202
cmiles74 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They are saying that if he uses Twitter, he must leave his tweets open to all the public and not a subset. But they are. Click logout if you’re one of the few professional Twitter trolls that actually managed to get his attention.

That he must leave his tweets open to all the public, and not prevent certain people from directly criticizing him in public either.

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

#222

Post by koolba »

welly wrote: post #188
koolba wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But is it his personal account anymore? Yes. For example one of his tweets from earlier today isn't a matter of public policy, it's his opinion on the current state of affairs: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/99928232531686604... > It's a verified account with the description of "45th President of the United States of America". Many people on Twitter have "Works @company" or "$TITLE as Company" on their…

And apparently the judge disagrees with you. You could say the sky is green and the grass is blue. Doesn't really matter. The white house has declared @realdonaldtrump as the official account and thus it is.

> And apparently the judge disagrees with you.

Well a judge disagrees. I'm curious to see where this ends up on appeal as the track record of rulings against the POTUS by liberal judges isn't exactly something one would want to bet on.

> You could say the sky is green and the grass is blue. Doesn't really matter.

As could the judge and just because one judge ruled a particular way doesn't make it a settled matter.

> The white house has declared @realdonaldtrump as the official account and thus it is.

Feel free to cite a source on that and explain what makes it "official". A sibling comment has a linked to a whitehouse.gov web page that has a link to @realDonaldTrump though I'd argue that doesn't make mean anything.

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

#223

Post by dnautics »

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…

> this opinion

do you mean techcrunch article's opinion or the judicial opinion?

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

#224

Post by Buttons840 »

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…

They could create there own webpage capable of displaying hundreds of bytes worth of text and post messages there to get around this, right?

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

#225

Post by zaroth »

daveguy wrote: post #219
xienze wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, and now you can't respond to anything he says. You've had your voice taken away. Not really. I mean, what did we do before Twitter came along?

Before Twitter came along the president didn't have the legal ability to prevent you from criticizing him in any other venue either.

Trump removed plenty of hecklers from his campaign events.

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

#226

Post by zamalek »

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…

I'm not sure about the school board; having to consider (or at least read) all public feedback doesn't extend far "below" governor AFAIK.

> can't block me on Twitter if I go on crazy racist tirades

If they did have to read it (again, not sure), they wouldn't be forced to retweet it. So some poor soul would have to read that vitriol but you wouldn't be defacing their profile.

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

#227

Post by alistairSH »

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…

IANAL... would this apply to government officials who maintain a private account and use a government account for work? In Trump's case (and Haley, and many others), he uses his personal account for business. And the President could be an edge case, and simply unable to separate private and business messages. The local dog catcher should be able to maintain that separation.

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

#228

Post by JasonFruit »

dnautics wrote: post #223
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…

> this opinion do you mean techcrunch article's opinion or the judicial opinion?

The judicial opinion, from the excerpts I found, didn't look inclined to address any of these questions.

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

#229

Post by drivingmenuts »

3pt14159 wrote: post #159
spookthesunset wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Oh common. Spam and a harassment is a problem. Let the people he blocks make a new account to follow him or open an incognito window.

> Spam and a harassment is a problem. Let the people he blocks make a new account to follow him or open an incognito window.

The ruling would be completely different if he was still private citizen Trump. He'd be free to block whomever he chose.

But he is President Trump and he's the one who chose to make his own private Twitter account function as his Presidential outlet to the world. So, different rules apply.

He had a perfectly good presidential Twitter account, but he's the one who chose to not use it. Let the chips fall where they may.

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

#230

Post by spookthesunset »

bcheung wrote: post #124
Karishma1234 wrote: post #90

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…

> 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.

If you read what you are arguing here out loud to yourself, it is immediately obvious why this "workaround" is a scary-bad precedent to set.

In order to view official communications from an elected official (i.e. the president of the united states), some citizens must "just" open an incognito window in order to work around the fact that the President of the United States blocked them from viewing official communication!

Go ahead, say that out loud to yourself! It is what some folks are arguing is okay. What kind of dystopian nightmare slippery slope path to hell is that shit? How more people aren't terrified of the precent allowing such a thing to occur is beyond me.

Saying it is okay that citizens have to work around government instituted blocks in order to hear from their elected officials. That is complete bollocks. "Shithole countries" with "shithole governments" pull bullshit stunts like blocking citizens access to official communication. I'd like to think America aspires to be better than that.

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