
Judge Rules Trump Can’t Block People on Twitter - lumisota
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-23/trump-told-by-judge-not-to-block-users-from-his-twitter-feed
======
JasonFruit
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 which they disagree?

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

~~~
kstrauser
We have a very broad "right to petition"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_petition))
our representatives and executives. Yes, the school board must listen to your
crazy rants, because it's literally their job to represent you, or at least to
be aware that your views exist.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
Your school board doesn't have to listen. They can put headphones on and hum
loudly through your speech if they like. They just can't prevent you from
talking to them.

Equivalently, the judge seems to have concluded that the President muting
someone on Twitter is fine, but blocking them is not.

~~~
edwhitesell
Well, Teump can't block someone because it's been defined his Twitter account
is official policy of the President. The same would be true for any government
official who's account is defined as such.

If it were a personal account, with personal views being posted, blocking
would be fine. You could probably even make your account private and only
allow approved followers. But, that's not the case here.

------
aksss
This seems wrong on the face of it. The judge asks the rhetorical question of
whether the logic changes based on whether he's president or not, and he
answers his question with a "No". So this is saying that no public official
can block others on Twitter. That seems like it's in the "suicide pact" column
of rights defense, but then I'm not one that cares about Twitter personally.
Just seems that plenty of other forums and even avenues on Twitter for
expression remain after blockage from one person's feed. 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. Curious how this
shakes out to other mediums.

~~~
spookthesunset
> 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 laws
around people having the right to reach out to their government officials.

Just 'cause twitter's software lets him do something doesn't make actually
doing that thing legal, moral, or ethical.

This judgement makes perfect sense and is completely reasonable when you
remember that technology is a mere tool designed to serve humans. Just cause
you _can_ do something in a tool doesn't make it right.

~~~
3pt14159
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.

~~~
freeone3000
We have the right to petition our government to redress grievances. As a
public official, the bar for harassment is higher - for the President, I don't
believe anything sent over twitter could be harassment.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Death threats?

~~~
zaarn
I wonder how many death threats Trump receives over Twitter and if that makes
any significant portion of the total amounts of threats. (Plus now you entered
the territory of "threaten a public official with death" which gets the high
ranking legal authorities into gear)

~~~
jakelazaroff
I honestly have no idea; this was a hypothetical specifically meant to address
the assertion that "for the President, I don't believe anything sent over
twitter could be harassment."

------
jdoliner
Surely that must mean that Twitter banning people is also a violation of the
first amendment, since that prevents them from accessing the same "public
square" this ruling is protecting their access to.

~~~
sp332
The first amendment doesn't apply to Twitter (the company). It applies to
governments.

~~~
jdoliner
Case law would disagree. Here's a case where the Supreme court ruled that
Facebook banning someone was a violation of their first amendment rights. [0]
Salient quote: "Foreclosing access to social media altogether thus prevents
users from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights"

Edit: as pointed out, this ruling doesn't actually disagree with what the
previous comment said. It does seem similar enough to me to be relevant though
so leaving it up.

[0]
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1194_08l1.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1194_08l1.pdf)

~~~
sp332
That is a restriction on lawmakers, not a restriction on Facebook. The law was
found unconstitutional. Facebook didn't have to do anything here. As far as I
can tell, he was never blocked or banned on Facebook's platform to begin with.

~~~
jdoliner
Ahh, right you are. That is an important distinction. Still, it seems a little
odd to me that it results in the same thing and is treated differently. What
if a government asked Facebook to ban someone and they complied, is that
Facebook doing it or the government.

~~~
danhon
Government is doing it. If Facebook is doing it at the direction of a
government entity and would otherwise not do it (and this is where I would
expect case law to get into the contextual details of implicit/explicit
direction etc) then government is acting in violation of the first amendment.

------
danso
FWIW, whitehouse.gov lists @realdonaldtrump (as opposed to @POTUS) as the
President's official Twitter account:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20180523194453/https://www.whiteh...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180523194453/https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-
trump-administration/)

------
pacifika
Don’t understand this. Blocking a person does not prevent the followers of
said person to see the conversation , thus it’s not a public forum?

~~~
evan_
I agree that it's kind of a questionable decision but my understanding of it
is, people can normally post public replies to tweets- but if the user blocks
you, you can't post your public reply. OK (and desirable) for most people, not
ok for the government to do.

There's not necessarily a perfect offline equivalent but it would sort of be
like if the president tried to forbid a newspaper from running an editorial
next to the text of a presidential speech- obviously unconstitutional. (not a
perfect comparison because twitter users who are blocked can and do get around
it by screenshotting or just linking to the tweet even though they can't reply
to it)

I think the more interesting part of this is the ruling that the president's
"personal" twitter account is an official government instrument.

~~~
tim333
I've noticed there are a lot of rude replies under most of Trumps tweets. I'd
think it would be normal to block that kind of thing but I guess it's an odd
situation - Twitter wasn't really designed for the president of the US.

For example - just the most recent
[https://twitter.com/ronrobiins/status/999283009957318656](https://twitter.com/ronrobiins/status/999283009957318656)
\- presidential ain't what it used to be.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
To be fair, no president was this rude. at least, not in public.

~~~
oh_sigh
LBJ was a well known asshole. Did you actually think about your statement
before you wrote it, or just assume that it would be true?

~~~
vaishaksuresh
Yay personal attacks! There is a difference between being an asshole and being
an asshole on tv/radio/twitter. The only way LBJ was same as Trump would be,
if LBJ went on TV everyday and yelled profanity and called people names.
Because that is what Trump does when he rage-tweets every morning.

~~~
oh_sigh
LBJ was a well known asshole on every medium that was available to him.

Does Trump use a lot of profanity? I've never really noticed. What I notice is
that he makes fun of his opponents a lot, but I don't really see how that is
considered rude, when his opponents are doing the same thing back to him.

------
cryptonector
Careful there. A judge calling Twitter a "public square" might ultimately lead
to an extension of Marsh v. Alabama whereby social media platforms will not be
able to censor political views they dislike. Slippery slopes and all that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Careful there. A judge calling Twitter a "public square" might ultimately
> lead to an extension of Marsh v. Alabama whereby social media platforms will
> not be able to censor political views they dislike.

The judge didn't call Twitter a “public square”, they called the space created
by the @realDonaldTrump account a “public forum”; that's a critical
difference.

~~~
cryptonector
It's still a slippery slope.

~~~
dragonwriter
In the sense of the fallacy, yes.

------
itg
Will this apply to all government officials on twitter? Can twitter still ban
a user if they deem the content to be harassment/etc?

~~~
commandlinefan
Not just government officials - it seems like the same logic would apply to
celebrities like Alyssa Milano who use their twitter almost exclusively as a
political campaign forum.

~~~
dangoor
That's not the same thing. Celebrities are not elected officials representing
constituents. Perhaps if someone is actually running for office it makes a
difference, but I'm not sure when these sorts of laws kick in.

~~~
commandlinefan
Ok, then does it apply to the aides to a congressman who are actually handling
their twitter feeds who are not themselves writing the laws? Any way you sum
it up, either Trump should be able to block people, or nobody should be able
to block people.

~~~
s73v3r_
Is it the account of the elected representative? Then yes, it would apply. It
doesn't matter if it's a surrogate actually making the posts.

And I highly disagree with the "all or nothing" approach you've laid out. The
biggest difference is that Trump is an elected official. Most people are not.

------
0xcafecafe
Isn't there a caveat? The article (unlike the headline) says "blocking people
based on political speech" is forbidden. However, he is still free to block
trolls right?

~~~
freedomben
Even if true, that's a totally subjective standard that can't be applied
consistently. One person's "political speech" is another person's "troll."

~~~
droopybuns
By that reasoning, this Judge’s ruling must be totally subjective.

[https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/17/fbi-apprehends-troll-
for...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/17/fbi-apprehends-troll-for-seizure-
inducing-twitter-attack/)

~~~
freedomben
That case isn't about "trolling," it's about causing physical harm to someone
through electronic means. It's more equivalent to electronic warfare. I don't
equate trolling (which is annoying, and irritating) with electronic warfare
(which could literally kill you).

And if it isn't subjective, then what is the objective measure that you use to
determine if something is "trolling" or not?

------
Karishma1234
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 their Twitter but Mr X does not get it
because he was blocked by them. \- Mr. Joe goes to local DMV to get a driving
manual. DMV clerk closes the window on his face and refused to give him the
manual.

How is twitter scenario different here ?

~~~
mal10c
Because Twitter is not a government owned entity, the government should have
no right to force the use or means of use of a private tool. Now if the tool
was a government utility, it would be a different story.

~~~
cmiles74
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.

~~~
paulddraper
Do his Gmail emails need to be open to all the public? His Slack messages? His
Facebook posts?

I don't see how anyone, president or otherwise, can't chose whom they send
messages to.

~~~
amarkov
He can certainly send private emails, Slack messages, or even Twitter DMs.
What he can't do is publicly broadcast his tweets to the world, and then
exclude people from them on political grounds.

~~~
rdtsc
> What he can't do is publicly broadcast his tweets to the world, and then
> exclude people from them on political grounds.

What if he blocks them on non-political grounds. Maybe they made fun of his
mother, or dog, or threatened to throw dirty socks on his lawn, should be be
able to block them then?

~~~
TechieKid
While I realize the article/judge's opinion specifically calls out political
speech, I'm fairly sure that applies to all speech, and the political speech
subset was probably chosen by the plaintiffs as an easier path to victory.

------
breakyerself
There are police departments all over the US illegally censoring critical
sentiment on Facebook. The only way to stop them is to sue each one that does
it. Makes me angry. Pasco PD gets away with murder. Literally and
figuratively.

------
jeffdavis
Traditionally, the publisher exercises control (and has responsibility for)
content. So who are the publishers here? What parts of twitter are the public
forum? Twitter itself, or individual accounts as well?

------
cwkoss
So Trump could still mute people, right?

Seems like the reason he can't block people is because it prevents them from
replying to his posts and engaging in the public conversation. Title seems a
bit misleading, almost makes it sound like he _has_ to read all of his twitter
replies.

~~~
frockington
Don't tell this to the hundreds of people who reply "Drumpf will be impeached
#RESIST" to every single one of his tweets. The realization that he has never
read a single one of their tweets might be enough cause a heart attack

~~~
mieseratte
> 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?

~~~
mschuster91
> It was his family name some time ago, so is this just the other sides'
> "Barack Hussein Obama" or is there more to it?

No, it's not the same thing. The _Hussein_ thing is that the Alt-Right uses it
to imply Obama being a Muslim (which he is not) and thus, by extension, a
terrorist supporter/enabler.

The Drumpf thing, however, is nothing more than highlighting the family origin
(which Trump actually even stated himself, per [https://www.snopes.com/fact-
check/donald-drumpf/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-drumpf/)).

~~~
V-2
Highlighting with what purpose? What political associations could possibly go
with "Drumpf" that are absent from "Trump"?

------
patrickg_zill
So, can Twitter block people?

~~~
s73v3r_
Sure. Twitter isn't POTUS.

------
mnm1
I want to know how this court plans to enforce this ruling. Or are we just
going to accept that the president is above the law when he declines to follow
the ruling and keeps blocking people? I bet it'll be the latter.

------
Jeremy1026
"The judge declined to issue an order forcing Trump to unblock the users,
saying her ruling should be sufficient to force a change in behavior."

Because Trump is the master of sub-text and will pick up that he should
unblock them.

~~~
Consultant32452
Can you imagine a court appointed official sitting next to Trump watching him
unblock everyone, one by one?

What a stupid situation.

Hopefully Twitter will throw him a bone and offer to mute everyone that was
blocked on the back-end.

~~~
spookthesunset
Or better, make it public which accounts he blocked... (assuming this list
hasn't already entered public record by way of this judgement)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
From the wikipedia page about the decision

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Reice_Buchwald#Knight_Fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Reice_Buchwald#Knight_First_Amendment_Institute_v._Donald_J._Trump)

>Buchwald declined, however, to issue an injunction against the President, and
instead issued a declaration with the statement that "we must assume that the
President and [Daniel] Scavino will remedy the blocking we have held to be
unconstitutional."

So for now, Trump really doesn't have to change anything.

------
smsm42
Looks like the judge just decided "oh, it's against Trump? I hate Trump, so
whatever it is I am on the plaintiff's side". We should expect better from
judges. 1st amendment has nothing to do with being able to annoy Trump via his
personal Twitter account. And it is fascinating how Twitter, Facebook etc. are
private companies with no obligations when it is convenient to censor, but
suddenly turn into "public forum" when other convenience demands it.

------
masters3d
Twitter will respond with deprecation for Blocking in favor of a new feature.
Ignore. which will only be available for celebrities.

~~~
chipperyman573
They already have this, it just doesn't block accounts from seeing what you've
posted

[https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-
mute](https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-mute)

------
pcunite
So, would it be okay for Trump's YouTube channel to prevent any comment from
being made? That's a feature of YouTube. Might need to enable that for
Twitter.

~~~
icebraining
IANAL, but yes, I think that's OK, because it's not blocking based on the
content of the speech, which is the crucial part.

~~~
paulddraper
How is the content the crucial part?

Free speech is about free speech, not discriminating on content.

It is both illegal for the government to shut down leftist newspapers, and
illegal for the government to shut down all newspapers.

The idiocy of this is making shutting down a newspaper equivalent to twitter
blocking, but if you draw the analogy, that's what you wind up with.

~~~
ubernostrum
The government can publish official communications in video form, and say
"please direct comments to <insert communications channel here>" rather than
using the particular publishing platform's commenting system.

The thing the government cannot do is simultaneously use the publishing
platform's comment system _and_ block certain people, based on the content or
viewpoint of their comments, from using that system.

This is how Trump got in hot water: he allowed some people to see and reply to
his official communications (his administration has admitted that they see his
Twitter account as an official communications channel used to make statements
in his official capacity as the President) through Twitter's built-in
mechanism, but not other people, and appeared to be making the choice based on
the content or viewpoint of those people's comments.

~~~
paulddraper
> The thing the government cannot do is simultaneously use the publishing
> platform's comment system and block certain people, based on the content or
> viewpoint of their comments, from using that system.

Is that an opinion of fairness? Or an opinion of law? Or the opinion of a
single judge? Or just your open musings?

~~~
ubernostrum
The judge in this case stated that one of the crucial questions was, and I
quote:

 _to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First
Amendment, ‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the
political views that person has expressed_

The judge reached an answer of "no" to that question.

You appear to be arguing either that the judge did not reach such an answer,
or that the judge was answering a different question. Since I see no way for
such an argument to be based on the available facts, I'm not sure what to do
with you.

~~~
paulddraper
I am arguing that the judge's conclusion was not soundly based on law.

I am open to being shown to be incorrect.

~~~
ubernostrum
I haven't had a chance to read the full ruling, but it seems fairly obvious
that if a government official designates a particular two-way communications
channel as a place for communicating official statements (the Trump
administration claims his Twitter account is such a channel), then the
government official is subject to some restrictions on how that channel can be
policed.

There was a case last year[1] where a federal judge in Virginia made a similar
ruling after a politician banned someone from commenting on an official
Facebook page due to not liking the opinions the commenter expressed.

And the general principle seems to be that the First Amendment does not allow
government officials to silence their critics on an official communications
channel; they can choose which channels to use, and refuse to open certain
others, but once they set up such a communications channel they cannot
discriminate based on the content or viewpoint of critics' speech in such
channel. To do so implicates not just freedom of speech, but also the First
Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances (i.e., if
the government official bans you from the communication channels you'd use to
state your grievances, how can you exercise that right?).

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/politician-
dinge...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/politician-dinged-for-
blocking-critical-constituent-from-facebook-page/)

~~~
paulddraper
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibition the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people to assemble, petition the government
for redress of grievances.

> it seems fairly obvious that if a government official designates a
> particular two-way communications channel

I would not be opposed to such a law. One way or another, the first amendment
is clearly not that law.

~~~
ubernostrum
So your approach to First Amendment issues is to disregard the history of
judicial interpretation and application in favor of "this case didn't involve
a law passed by Congress explicitly doing one of these things, so it doesn't
apply".

Thank you and good night.

------
zerostar07
This is funny. it sounds like it will be more work for twitter than it will be
for Trump

~~~
icebraining
Twitter doesn't have to do anything.

~~~
theandrewbailey
And technically, since the court didn't order anything, neither does Trump.

~~~
icebraining
A court doesn't have to order anything; the law does. The court just clarified
what the law means.

------
jonny_eh
So is Twitter going to comply and prevent Trump, as well as other public
officials, from blocking people?

------
davebryand
This is not a good sign.

------
Andre_Wanglin
Now let her enforce it.

------
ChuckMcM
An interesting ruling, here is my prediction on the effect of the ruling:

This will enable the twitterati to get Trump off Twitter. Without the ability
to block users, he will be hounded with notifications from adversaries using
trigger phrases designed to irritate and harass him.

~~~
striking
There's a Mute button. It's like Block but much simpler, in that it doesn't
prevent other people from following him or reading his tweets. He just won't
see what they say back.

~~~
forapurpose
> There's a Mute button. It's like Block but much simpler, in that it doesn't
> prevent other people from following him or reading his tweets. He just won't
> see what they say back.

The First Amendment concerns speech, not listening. It protects citizen's
right to speak to government, not to hear what government says (not a highly
sought-after civil right!). I wonder if Mute is legal.

~~~
txcwpalpha
I haven't read the _full_ text of the decision yet, but from the parts I have
read, it appears as though the judge is saying she doesn't see any issue with
Trump _muting_ people, and only is saying _blocking_ is not allowed.

It confused me at first, because it seems like if the First Amendment would be
applied to this, it would be to make sure that Twitter users can communicate
_to_ Trump, not to make sure that Twitter users can see Trump's tweets. But
after understanding it a bit more, the actual issue at question here is that
blocking prevents the blocked user from doing things like retweeting the
blocking user's tweets, which the judge apparently sees as artificially
restricting what the blocked user is able to say.

------
koolba
> The judge said the comment section of Trump’s personal account,
> @realDonaldTrump, is a public forum and that blocking users on the basis of
> political speech is a violation of their free-speech rights under the First
> Amendment.

If this applied to @potus I _might_ agree with it but applying it to his
personal account is rubbish. You could easily extend that same logic to say
that any elected official, at any level of government, can't block
communications from anyone on their personal accounts.

Trump using his personal account to comment on "work" (i.e. being President)
doesn't de facto make it a work account no more than me complaining about my
job on my personal email turns it into a work email.

~~~
giarc
But is it his personal account anymore? It's a verified account with the
description of "45th President of the United States of America". When he
speaks (tweets) he speaks as the POTUS. Doesn't matter if it's from the @potus
account or @realdonaldtrump account.

~~~
koolba
> 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...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/999282325316866048)

> 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
verified accounts. That doesn't make their account the property of their
employer. It's purely a declarative, factual, statement.

> When he speaks (tweets) he speaks as the POTUS. Doesn't matter if it's from
> the @potus account or @realdonaldtrump account.

I'm saying it does. Whether it's in a personal capacity or public capacity
matters. In this case there's a clear separation too as he's got access to the
@potus and he seems to use that for official business.

~~~
giarc
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-
records.htm...](https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-
records.html#2209)

~~~
koolba
> 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.

------
jordan801
I feel pretty conflicted on this. The way Trump is using his Twitter, it
almost becomes public property. I mean he's making huge announcements, almost
solely on Twitter. So, at that point, it's almost like denying public access
to the State of the Union. But, on the other hand, it's his damn Twitter and
he should be able to do whatever he wants with it.

I guess it begs the question, when you're a "public servant", and you use your
social media as a medium, are you entitled to privacy in the same way a
standard citizen is? Or does that medium become public property? It's probably
best that "public servants" don't use their private materials in an official
capacity.

[edit] switched public capacity to official.

~~~
Retric
The ruling revolves around how he is using the account. If the had been just
giving cooking tips then it would not have been considered a 'government'
account which seem reasonable.

~~~
jordan801
That's exactly what I am saying. Since he's using it in an official capacity,
it becomes questionable. I agree with the ruling, as it pertains to his usage.

------
megaman22
Trump has multiple twitter accounts. His primary one is @realDonaldTrump,
which he's been using since 2009, long before he was a government figure. This
is his private citizen Twitter account, as far as I'm concerned, and he can do
whatever he damn well pleases there.

If he were to block people from his @POTUS President Donald Trump account,
then I might take issue with that.

~~~
ryan-c
Has he ever used the POTUS account? From its recent activity it appears to be
run by a PR team and only retweets things.

As far as Twitter is concerned, his "personal account" is an official
government account, exempt from being banned for posting content that
otherwise would violate Twitter's ToS.

------
V-2
_People_ are not blocked. Only _accounts_ are blocked. It's not the same thing
at all. It's trivial (and free) to create another account; in other words, the
ban is not tied to you as a person, only to certain account.

Besides, you can still read all tweets of whoever blocked you; all it takes is
logging out of your blocked account, or not logging in in the first place.

They can't comment anymore, true. But by this line of reasoning, is Trump (or
any president / public official, for that matter) obliged to take _phone
calls_ from everyone?

------
briandear
Funny, the principal of the Parkland school has blocked parents of victims. I
wonder if this ruling affects him as well.

------
droopybuns
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Hard to grasp the logic here.

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pcunite
Has the judge read some of the comments being made? Absolute craziness in
there. Some accounts should absolutely be blocked, they are repeatedly
spamming and saying things you would never say in a meeting face to face.

-EDIT- Funny that my comment is being down-voted. Seen everyone wants to moderate comments. If someone says something you don't like on your personal page, you should be able to stop that. You've just exercise your rights to drop my comment to the bottom.

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hrktb
I guess the issue would be what happens when these comments are said face to
face.

If they are punishable, they should be, wether done on twitter or face to
face.

I they are not, they shouldn’t be banned, as you wouldn’t ban them from the
public place IRL.

Note that anyone can still mute them, just as you can ignore people IRL.

