A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Donald Trump isn’t allowed to block anyone from his @RealDonaldTrump account on Twitter because it violates the U.S. Constitution.
“This case requires us 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, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States,” Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald stated in her opinion. “The answer to both questions is no.”
This is absurd. The whole case is based on a few whiny reporters who tweeted things critical of President Trump and found themselves blocked. The rest of us might make another Twitter account to follow him again or just tune into Fox News or CNN for five minutes to get a rundown of what he tweeted that day, but nooooo. These guys were peeved that they couldn’t @Trump, so they decided to sue and got the Knight Foundation to pay for it.
Trump is the biggest loudmouth we’ve had as a president in a really long time, possibly the biggest one ever. And news outlets are #obsessed with his tweets. Even my grandparents — who do not have Twitter accounts and would probably require an explanation of the social media platform that’s longer than the six-page-long one in the ruling — know what @RealDonaldTrump is saying at any given time because no one can escape it. So knowing what Trump is tweeting and having access to his account, which is public, is not an issue.
These people are upset they got blocked because their replies to his tweets will not show up under his tweet or make it into Trump’s notifications. Every American has the right, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, to speak freely, but no one is guaranteed the right to an audience. Forcing Trump to unblock people is not a right guaranteed to me by the Constitution, and to pretend otherwise is absurd.
