Shutterstock
A federal judge told President Trump that he violated the U.S. constitution by blocking his “haters” on Twitter.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a previous ruling from a lower court that deemed the president’s behavior on Twitter as unconstitutional.
The First Amendment prevents viewpoint discrimination, meaning that the government and officials are not allowed to exclude or block views that they disagree with.
Because the president uses the social media platform to conduct official business, blocking his critics means he is excluding citizens from participating in what the judges deem a public forum. This means that his behavior violated the First Amendment.
The first ruling came after the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued on behalf of seven people that were blocked by Trump on Twitter for criticizing him. That means that they were unable to view Trump’s tweets, reply to his tweets, or view comment threads associated with those tweets.
This ruling will have implications for how elected officials interact with citizens online moving forward, especially with those that are critical or do not agree with the official.
