Federal Judge: Trump Blocking Twitter Accounts Is Unconstitutional

In July 2017, a handful of critics of President Trump filed a lawsuit protesting his policy of blocking the most noxious douchebags. Because this is Trump, the case went to trial. And because this is Trump, the critics won.

BREAKING: President Trump’s blocking of critics on Twitter is unconstitutional, court rules. https://t.co/8fZ6cdKbAL pic.twitter.com/47a0yNYYkb

— Knight 1st Amendment (@knightcolumbia) May 23, 2018

I see Federal judges are playing Constitutional Calvinball again. pic.twitter.com/Udl6QZ1Irs

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) May 23, 2018

The future of technology will be decided by 74-year-old judges. https://t.co/szjFYZ6KMC

— David Freddoso (@freddoso) May 23, 2018

Two immediate takeaways from Judge Buchwald’s ruling against Trump blocking people on Twitter:

1. It doesn’t extend to muting.

2. It appears to apply to every government official who uses Twitter to discuss their office, not just Trump.

https://t.co/UIePP7N2y2 pic.twitter.com/jXlfSK0r0K

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2018

The heart of the decision appears to be the argument that Twitter followers have a right to use Trump’s tweets as a platform to get their own responses heard by other people.

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2018

So a politician can’t block neoNazis who disrupts his/her feed and attacks others who interact on it? Or trolls? Or people who tag discussions with porn?

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 23, 2018

Keith Ellison violated mine. And I’m his constituent. pic.twitter.com/30eVYN0KrC

— M. Amsterdam (@emmdee22) May 23, 2018

IANAL. So what follows is a gut feeling rather than legal analysis. If Twitter is a public forum of such a magnitude that its use has a constitutional basis, then @jack is on damned thin ice whenever Twitter suspends or shadow bans an account. The same person that has the right to be heard on Donald Trump’s account can’t exercise that right if Twitter has banned them. The judge in the case advised Trump to mute his critics rather than block them. This is strange advice. The implication is that Trump’s critics have a right to use Trump’s twitter feed to publicize their own blinding intellects rather than “petition the Government for the redress of grievances.” This is novel. If we use mail as an analogy, every major agency has a blacklist of persons from whom they don’t accept mail…that is, it is returned to sender unread…or they simply toss in the trash. This is no different than Trump blocking people on Twitter. The decision would also seem to say that Twitter can’t constitutionally suspend Trump’s twitter account because then it would be abridging the right of people to tweet things at him which is bound to break many hearts on the left.

GP Hey, @Twitter, I assume you’ll be unblocking everyone blocked by a public official today and removing public officials’ ability to block anyone, correct?

— The Gormogons (@Gormogons) May 23, 2018

If we carry this over to other social media, then a politician with a Facebook page would not be allowed to “un-friend” people. He might not even be allowed to refuse to “friend” them because without the “friend” status they can’t communicate with him.

So a politician can’t block neoNazis who disrupts his/her feed and attacks others who interact on it? Or trolls? Or people who tag discussions with porn?

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 23, 2018

In fact, none of the logical implications of the decision seem defensible in any way.

I suspect this will be appealed and at some point reason will set in and this will be seen as an act of #TheResistance, much like the travel ban rulings, and it will be treated as such. But it is a shame when the courts allow themselves to be beclowned simply to strike a blow at Trump.

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