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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

#251

Post by milankovic »

lightbyte wrote: post #184
mieseratte wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Other posters have not given the actual reason for this. It is from HBO's Last Week Tonight. The joke is that Trump made fun of Jon Stewart for changing his last name in a tweet [1], which is silly because his family did the same. >I promise you that I'm much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz - I mean Jon Stewart @TheDailyShow. Who, by the way, is totally overrated. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/327076…

Correct me if I am wrong here, but if I recall it correctly, Jon Stewart made that name change himself (as your comment and linked source implies), while in Trump's case, it was not done by himself, it was something that his father had done in his life (or maybe even grandfather?).

That is something fundamentally different, but Last Week Tonight is just some comedy show, so one should not expect too much here.

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

#252

Post by chimeracoder »

ikeyany wrote: post #198
chimeracoder wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one of the ways to interact with the executive branch is by calling the white house, wouldn't telecoms banning you from having a phone number be a more similar analogy? No, because that's not what this ruling does. This ruling says that the White House can't block incoming calls from a specific number. (Though even that's not really a great analogy, because phone numbers are not considered to correspond uniquely…

The parent comment was about Twitter banning individuals, not about the ruling: > Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the first amendment

> The parent comment was about Twitter banning individuals, not about the ruling:

Right, and it's nonsensical to apply the first amendment to Twitter, because, broadly speaking, users don't have standing to make First Amendment claims against a private entity like Twitter.

If Twitter is banning people in a problematic way, or in problematic numbers, then there might be an argument that the government can't use Twitter to publish breaking news or announce policy changes. There are, in fact, separate lawsuits around this. But still, that's a far cry from saying "Twitter banning people is a violation of the First Amendment".

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

#253

Post by jsgo »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #241
PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying the judge's ruling is wrong then. Because you can't defend twitter banning someone making them unable to respond to Trump's tweets while saying that people have the right to respond to Trump's tweets.

Twitter is not the only means of response. And the ruling only applies to the President's (currently Trump) use of Twitter and says nothing about your interaction with that service. As a private entity, they're free to make a ToS and you're free to agree or reject it, which governs your usage.

@PurbleBoxDragon - that seems more of a case that the government is leveraging a platform for purposes they should not. That isn't Twitter's fault.

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

#254

Post by larkeith »

ikeyany wrote: post #140
acdha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being banned still prevents you from interacting in more ways. Trump retweets and tags people/organizations all the time.

The key here is that the Twitter is under no responsibility to facilitate your first amendment rights. The government, solely and exclusively, cannot limit your free speech; Twitter can do whatever they want, and are under no legal obligation to provide any service whatsoever to you.

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

#255

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> 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?

Application of the same rule applief here to local officials actually preceded this decision.

> I think there's a lot of nuance this opinion doesn't address.

Trial court decisions are not legislation—or even appellate decision where there is a need except in unusual circumstances to articulate a reusable rule. They tend to apply law narrowly to the facts of the case in front of them, not address nuance involving hypothetical circumstances not at issue.

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

#256

Post by anigbrowl »

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #174
acdha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you are saying the judge's ruling is wrong then. Because you can't defend twitter banning someone making them unable to respond to Trump's tweets while saying that people have the right to respond to Trump's tweets.

No, your understanding of it is wrong. Trump is limited from blocking people because he's the President. If he were to resign tomorrow and go back to being a private citizen, he could block away to his heart-s content. Twitter, the company, can do what it likes because it is not an organ of the government, notwithstanding the choice of some government officials to make use of it.

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

#257

Post by jsgo »

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #179
chimeracoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your account gets banned.... Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment? Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). If the government ran its own Mastodon instance, then there would be an argument to be made that it couldn't ban users on that Mastodon instance, depending on the nature of that Mastodon instance and what it'…

>Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). But twitter is working with the government in hosting the tweets and thus assumes responsibility to provide a public square, in which case it cannot ban people. Otherwise government should be banned from using twitter because by picking a private company to put government messages on, the governm…

> Otherwise government should be banned from using twitter because by picking a private company to put government messages on, the government official (in this case Trump) is picking that company's existing policy (what ever it may be) as a means of banning people, which the government isn't allowed to do.

Bingo.

I'm assuming you're a developer. Have you ever wanted to leverage a piece of code, say GPL licensed, that does everything you want it to, checks off all of the development boxes, would make your life amazing.... but were forced to go with something else because of compliance? Same thing here. Just because Twitter does everything functionally they need, if it forces them into situations that would run afoul of their requirements, then they're forced to go a different avenue.

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

#258

Post by koolba »

giarc wrote: post #239
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…

Re: your 2nd point about other people with twitter profiles that say "works @company". They often have disclaimer that simply says "Thoughts are my own". The president does not. Additionally, the Presidential Records Act seems to cover non-official electronic communication and states that all communication through non-official channels still need to be recorded. https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-record…

> Re: your 2nd point about other people with twitter profiles that say "works @company". They often have disclaimer that simply says "Thoughts are my own". The president does not.

And if they don't they're still your personal accounts. People add those as a failsafe against their employer's being harassed. It has no legal significance as the account is personally yours regardless of whether you disclaim your employer.

> Additionally, the Presidential Records Act seems to cover non-official electronic communication and states that all communication through non-official channels still need to be recorded.

They are being recorded. What's being argued here is whether the POTUS can block other users from his personal account.

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

#259

Post by zaroth »

enraged_camel wrote: post #248
zaroth wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump removed plenty of hecklers from his campaign events.

He had not been elected yet. The moment he did, things changed.

Certainly he continues to remove hecklers from his campaign events. The distinction is a campaign event isn’t a “public forum”.

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

#260

Post by anigbrowl »

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #179
chimeracoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your account gets banned.... Wouldn't it thus be a violation of the first amendment? Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). If the government ran its own Mastodon instance, then there would be an argument to be made that it couldn't ban users on that Mastodon instance, depending on the nature of that Mastodon instance and what it'…

>Not unless the government is the entity doing the banning (or collaborating with Twitter to ban accounts at its request). But twitter is working with the government in hosting the tweets and thus assumes responsibility to provide a public square, in which case it cannot ban people. Otherwise government should be banned from using twitter because by picking a private company to put government messages on, the governm…

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.

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