Trump Goes to Court For The Right to Block Twitter Users
An appellate court in New York will hear a case Tuesday about President Donald Trump’s right to block users on Twitter. A panel of judges will decide the issue, which was the subject of an earlier case, according to a CNN report. The story may fly under the radar in the current news climate.
A federal judge previously ruled that Trump couldn’t block users on Twitter and that doing so violated the First Amendment. The court ruled that the public had the right to see President Trump’s tweets, saying that his tweets should be available as Twitter is a public forum.
The Justice Department will argue that Trump should be allowed to block Twitter users, just like everyone else on the popular micro-blogging site.
“The @realDonaldTrump account is a private account that belongs to Donald Trump personally, not to the United States,” the Justice Department has said. It will argue that “his control over that account is completely independent of his public office.”
The Justice Department also said, “when Donald Trump decides not to interact with other Twitter users through the @realDonaldTrump account by blocking them, he exercises a power enjoyed by all Twitter users.”
However, the appellate court may see things differently. The President frequently makes policy announcements on Twitter. Trump recently used Twitter to announce he would remove sanctions on North Korea and recognize Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights.
