It it unconstitutional for Trump to block Twitter users on his

>Even though the tweets may have "disagreed or ridiculed you," the letter says, "they were protected by the First Amendment." The Supreme Court has supported protections of "sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks" as part of the "robust political debate encouraged by the First Amendment," the letter says.

>That means Twitter followers should not be excluded from the ongoing debate on the network — since they are blocked, they no longer see Trump's tweets and, subsequently, they cannot post replies that would be seen by other Trump followers.

>Trump's use of Twitter is reminiscent of how other presidents have used media — Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio addresses and John F. Kennedy's TV press briefings — to "go around the press in the past," said Gene Policinski, chief operating officer at the Newseum Institute and First Amendment Center.

>But Trump has "basically turned" his Twitter feed "into a public forum," such as a town hall meeting, he said. "I would suspect he could retain the right to block people who are abusive by commonly accepted terms, but just to block people for being critical, you could argue they are protected by the First Amendment. ... We have the right to talk back to our leaders without penalty."

>The Knight Institute's attorneys plan legal action if Twitter followers who have been blocked because of their views are not unblocked. “Though the architects of the Constitution surely didn’t contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable," said Jameel Jaffer, the institute’s executive director, in a statement. "Having opened this forum to all comers, the President can’t exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what they’re saying.”

>Trump also has 18.7 million followers on the @POTUS account on which he has posted 647 tweets. Twitter didn't credit Trump with bringing more users to the network, but Twitter saw a 6% uptick in average monthly active users during the first three months of 2017, the company said when it announced its first-quarter financials in April.

>"His use of Twitter is obviously unique and unprecedented in this area," said Katie Fallow, a senior litigator at the institute.

>The institute became "aware of a trend over the past week or so of (Trump) or someone who administers his account blocking people who are critical of him," she said. "You are blocking those users so they can’t see his tweets and can’t reply to him. It both affects their ability to hear the speech of the president but also affects their ability to participate in what is a very lively and active public conversation."

>Trump regularly keeps a steady stream of tweets going and when he goes quiet — as he did during recent nine-day overseas trip — the news media notices. In the last day alone, the president tweeted about the Gulf nations' sanctions against Qatar, a Republican meeting on tax cuts and health care, the travel ban, air traffic control plan, the remembrance of the D-Day Invasion and the media.

>Trump's use of Twitter is reminiscent of how other presidents have used media — Franklin D. Roosevelt's radio addresses and John F. Kennedy's TV press briefings — to "go around the press in the past," said Gene Policinski, chief operating officer at the Newseum Institute and First Amendment Center.

>But Trump has "basically turned" his Twitter feed "into a public forum," such as a town hall meeting, he said. "I would suspect he could retain the right to block people who are abusive by commonly accepted terms, but just to block people for being critical, you could argue they are protected by the First Amendment. ... We have the right to talk back to our leaders without penalty."

Lol @ democrats

>This case also serves as a signal to other local, state and federal officials to be inclusive on Twitter, Fallow said. "You have a number of public officials and government entities at local, state and federal levels using social media to conduct the business of government," she said. "When they do so and they allow for participation by the public that creates a public forum and they cannot discriminate based on viewpoint against speakers in that forum."

Follow up: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/spicer-insists-trumps-tweets-are-official-white-house-statements/2017/06/06/75a94b54-4aea-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e_video.html

>Reporter: "Are President Trump's tweets considered Official White House Statements?"
>Spicer:"Well, as it is the President of the United States -- so, they're -- considered offical statements by the President of the United States."

Liberals still BTFO

>>147477
Lol this is real?

>>147490
Yup.

Do they have a case, lads?

>>147492
Impeach!!!!!!!!!

>>147492
No because Twitter is not a government entity regardless of how Don uses it. In the end they can and will just say it was never official, we didn't mean it when it was.

The good news is we're all paying attention to this now and the Russian thing is covfefe

>>147492
Not really, twitter is a private company with private policies. It's entirely up to twitter to make that distinction

Then he can read @potus.
It was created for all to read if the readers obey twitter's guidelines / rules / regulations.

_________
Thread over.

>>147494
>not a government entity
that's what I thought too but Spicer saying the tweets are official gave me pause.

Honestly doubt they'll be taken seriously in any case.

>>147477
Liberals really are mentally ill.

>>147494
the russia thing has always been covfefe. I wonder what the reaction from left will be when Mueller clears trump?

>I would suspect he could retain the right to block people who are abusive by commonly selected terms, but just to block people for being critical, you could argue they are protected by the first amendment

First off, there is a difference between being critical of someone (therefore having an actual argument to make i.e. points and evidence) and just saying "Ur bad and we don't like u."

The woman who tweeted the gif of the pope wasn't making any points or doing anything that a critic would do, she was just being a cunt to someone she doesn't like to get retweets, Trump, who was in his private Twitter account, is perfectly within his rights to block her.

>>147499
Spicer never said the tweets are official.

When Spicer said the tweets were official he was speaking metaphorically.

Spicer can't keep up with the president, when he said metaphorical he didn't understand what the president was doing. President trump knows they're not official and that's all that matters.

@realDonaldTrump: of course this is official, I'm the president and I did a very hard thing winning a rigged electoral collage so everything I tweet is as the President. Best Ever!

[shit storm about that tweet starts]
---
Or did you not figure out how this works yet?

>>147483
>>147529
I'd like to see how'd you respond if it was HRC.
>>147492
Maybe. It'll take some time to tell.
Government officials using social media as a public platform is kinda new grounds. At least on this level.

>>147728
Haha funny shit

>>147728
>Government officials using social media as a public platform is kinda new grounds. At least on this level.

I think we'll agree the essential line in terms of, to throw out a phrase "democratic public forum," was crossed once Spicey acknowledged that Trump's tweets from his own personal account were actual presidential policy (not mere representations or reflections). Hopefully the result of any such legal challenge will be that a government entity will have to previously declare or de facto make obvious (@VPOTUS is obvious, but a future veep could still block users on their private account, say) that its social media account is such a policy forum.

Btw, for those whose kneejerk response is "omg private company," something like Twitter has become a de facto public utility a la Alexander Graham Bell's AT&T, which was also made subject to neutrality challenges early on.

>>147748
That's why banning conservatives is against free speech on Twitter! This guy's exactly right

>>147728
yeah I'm keeping an eye on this story because "official Twitter statements" is new territory so I expect that people are still figuring out how much they count and for what.

>>147722
It was obvious that Spicer was trying to make his answer sound like both a "yes" and a "no" at the same time so that in the event of controvery he can confirm or deny according to his needs. The reporter either didn't get that, or just didn't bother to pursue it.

>>147793
controversy

>>147771
Read my fucking post. Twitter can ban whoever they want for abuse of service and blatant 4chan-style raid+harassment (which is why Milo got banned, which is what I assume you're referencing). I and the lawsuit are talking about when it's coming from an official political figure's account. Twitter may even want to eventually adjust its programming so that Milo's original account can be activated and only available to post on threads coming from said official accounts.

Still, even if a service like Twitter were ruled to be exactly like a public utility (and not a modern-age adjustment as it should be) in the example I gave, such public utilities in the past could still banhammer, with the backing of the law, people who abused the service -- in which case the last thing you'd want is a ruling extending as far as to make the entirety of Twitter a protected-speech forum.

>>147477
>Twitter shadowbans or permabans everyone with right leaning posts and not enough followers for there to be a backlash.
>"whatever, they're a private company, they can do whatever they want you have no right to free speech there."

>Trump blocks people that exploit the twitter algorithm to push their tweets to the top of his reply chain, while spamming nothing but the same "UR GUNNA GO TO JAIL TINY HAND MAN" bullshit.
>"HELP, HELP, I'M BEING OPPRESSED. NOW THAT I CAN'T SHITPOST I THINK FREE SPEECH IS A GOOD THING."

>>147859
>the last thing you'd want
I don't think you know me.

> Twitter gets protected speech
> other websites forced to never ban anyone
> 4Chan looses all moderation
> I can post ponies anywhere again

I'm half hard just thinking about it

https://m.imgur.com/C09YoNS

Does anyone think this is actually constitutionally defensible by the way? I know it's not a big deal and I don't expect to see anything done about it but yeah technically it does sound illegal to me.

>>147933
It's not constitutionally defensible and it's not illegal either.

>>147933
That's because you have a mental illness

>>147933
Are you insane?

>>147940
>>147967
It's just a technicality and I'm not saying that illegal = wrong and anything needs to be done. But the technicality remains. Members of the government cannot restrict protected speech and peaceful assembly based on the opinions of the people involved. Posting on the internet is both of those things and there is already legal precedent for that.

The fact that Twitter is a privately owned platform only means they are themselves allowed to censor people legally but by putting the tools in the hands of the users it is the users that are the ones actually doing the silencing and when those users are members of state or federal government it seems then it would be technically an issue.

>>148442
Hey man if you want to open up the technicality arguments we can sit here all day talking about both sides

And if you want to argue that a president shouldn't be allowed to block users then you can go ahead

But in my honest opinion, it's not even worthy of discussion

>>148445
well that's fair

>>147933
>blocking people on your twitter meme toy
the very notion of something so petty being unconstitutional is kind of an insult to the constitution tbqh

I think if it's his personal twitter account, no. He has every right, but he has to be using it for personal reasons and nothing related to his work. Considering he isn't speaking about top secret government stuff on it to the leader of Russia means he's fine.

Obama blocked people on his POTUS account when he was in office. Where was this concern then?

>>148882
everything trump does is clickbait worthy.

>>148882
He also did a immigration ban on all the same countries Trump wants to ban