Appeals court rules Trump can't block people on Twitter

[Mrs. Overall]

Source: The Hill

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that President Trump cannot block Twitter users from his official account, finding that the practice is discriminatory.

The ruling upholds a lower court ruling that also found Trump cannot block the Twitter users.

The president uses his Twitter account to make announcements, from personnel changes within his administration to the implementation of new policies.

The judges wrote "that the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees."

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/452160-appeals-court-rules-trump-cant-block-people-on-twitter

[area51]

1. Well, I'm sure

Donnie will immediately start obeying the ruling.

[NurseJackie]

3. Maybe the Twitter admins could disable his ability to block others...

Maybe the Twitter admins could disable his ability to block others... and in the process, UN-block those who have been blocked.

[forgotmylogin]

9. Perhaps public officials should have a special sort of account.

I'd say an "official" public figure account should let them tweet with just a "like" and a "dislike" and a "share" button. No replies to the original tweet, but someone can share it and "host" replies and discussion about it separate from the original official's timeline.
It should also not allow deletion of tweets without review. It can be followed, but cannot block any followers.

That way, there'd be the official "POTUS" twitter account for government announcements. If the president wants to twitter like normal, they use an alternate personal account.

This could also be useful for celebrities and news organizations also - people can follow them and see their tweets without a zillion troll responses down-thread unless they go on the timeline of someone who shared the official tweet and wants to discuss it.

[Perseus]

13. No, why?

He wants to tweet stupidity then he has to put up with what people answer back. Why would these assholes get more privilege? That is all we need, a facebook for politicians only, a twitter for politicians only filtered to allow only praise, etc.

[forgotmylogin]

21. I specified there would be a like AND a dislike button.

I don't think politicians should be using regular Twitter for official governmental communications at all. My idea was for an official channel that prevents deleting official records or blocking users since Trump uses Twitter as official communication and has the ability to cut off that communication from people, which shouldn't happen.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Ha! And not from the Ninth Circuit, Trump's bete noire.

[FM123]

4. Great

His crazy followers are in for shock when they actually get to read what most of America really think (and know) about him....

[Thekaspervote]

6. Hopefully they will be too busy tweeting in "protection" of goon to bother voting

[NewJeffCT]

10. A lot of the replies to Donny's tweets

are pretty negative already. I'd guess well over half of them, but that's just anecdotal on my part.

[Tech]

5. My husband was blocked early on. It was awhile ago, and he thought it was pretty funny.

I am sure he will be excited to be able to share his opinions with (or maybe about) trump again.

He may get more followers this way. I don't use Twitter or Facebook for sanity reasons, but would love to see some push back to his ramblings.

[riversedge]

18. I have never followed him. I see his tweets posted or they are in the news. Enough!

[FakeNoose]

7. Chump doesn't read anything on his Twitter threads anyway

I doubt if anyone in the Chump family bothers to read what other people say about them.
Life is much simpler that way.

[sakabatou]

8. He'll defy the court again and block people

And other won't give a shit that he does so!

[madville]

11. So do all public officials have to abide by this ruling?

Basically all their comment sections on all social media platforms will be full of unabated hate and vileness from the subject's haters. Great........

[ancianita]

12. Yes; a precedent ruling was made re the same blocking on FB. It was in the news maybe last year.

And yes, the FB threads that I see for politicians like my mayor, presidential candidates are full of vile trolling.

I check fake accounts and report them -- probably around ten a day -- because the bot machinery is still in force, and a few get through to annoy supporters of these public officials.

[LisaM]

14. What a Pandora's box.

I get that legitimate disagreement shouldn't be blocked, but of course, then you get astroturfing and trolling and bots.

Civil discourse is finished.

[ancianita]

16. I see it as just another arena to vanquish liars that undermine democracy. They will pop up

on every platform, as the ending of the Fairness Doctrine has shown us.

Global communications have simply multiplied the "players."

But this is not a game, is it. Not to us.

So I go in, because they will never take over the framing in my FB neck of the woods.

Discouragement is our first reaction. But we have to know that, then resolve to redirect that emotion toward doing something to lessen its frequency.

Punching neonazis, nazis, reporting trolls, not letting racist, sexist jokes go by -- all that stuff is about the battling for truth to dominate communications, even if it doesn't eliminate lies.

That's how real civility survives, and not the performative civility of fake religions and falsely based cultures of the south.

[frazzled]

20. Hopefully, because of this, the effect will be

that politicians will stop spending so much time tweeting, or abandon the practice altogether. It’s a low-level, distracting, and pretty useless form of communication, and I hope it goes the way of Pet Rocks soon. Get back to work, everyone. The country and its issues are vast and complex, and require more than 280 characters of thought (even though the most common length of a Tweet is still only 33 characters, the equivalent of a belch).

[dlk]

15. Now, if Twitter Will Only Enforce this Ruling...

[ancianita]

17. Twitter and Reddit now stand as the biggest enforcers on the nets. From two weeks ago:

New York (CNN Business)

Twitter plans to place a disclaimer on future tweets from world leaders that break its rules but which Twitter decides are in the "public interest," the company said in a blog post Thursday.
This policy change could face its most prominent test in President Trump. Trump has repeatedly tested Twitter's community standards with his regular tirades on the platform and some of the president's tweets have run afoul of Twitter's rules.

Twitter (TWTR) has in the past allowed tweets from Trump and other world leaders to remain online, even though they broke the company's rules, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to CNN Business, because it believes the tweets are in the public interest.

For all its global reach, Twitter suspends, bans and monitors accounts pretty well.

Twitter, along with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, jointly agreed to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review "[the] majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours.[375]

In August 2016, Twitter stated that it had banned 235,000 accounts over the past six months, bringing the overall number of suspended accounts to 360,000 accounts in the past year, for violating policies banning use of the platform to promote extremism....

With Twitterbots, users are able to create the illusion of "buzz" on their site by obtaining followers from services such as Swenzy and underground suppliers who operate bot farms or click farms.[446][451]

The companies that facilitate this service create fake Twitter accounts that follow a number of people, some of these Twitter accounts may even post fake tweets to make it seem like they are real. This practice of obtaining mass amounts of twitterbots as followers is not permitted on Twitter.[452]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Issues_and_controversies

[madville]

19. Just saw a headline that a lawsuit has been filed today against AOC

for the same thing. It is using this ruling against Trump as a basis for the lawsuit to make AOC unblock everyone she has done it to on her Twitter account. That was quick.