LEGAL/SOCIAL MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In recent days, President Trump has used Twitter to warn Mexico that he may close the border, to suggest that The New York Times and The Washington Post be stripped of their Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the special counsel’s Russia investigation and to criticize the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates in 2018. And if Mr. Trump had his way, Brandon Neely, among others, would be blocked from seeing any of those tweets. Mr. Neely, a police officer in Houston, is one of an untold number of Twitter users who have been blocked by Mr. Trump. These users, if they are logged into their accounts, cannot see the president’s tweets and are unable to reply to them or see others’ responses. The president’s actions led Mr. Neely, along with six others blocked by Mr. Trump, to sue him, saying he had violated their First Amendment rights. A federal judge in Manhattan ruled against Mr. Trump last year, finding that the president’s Twitter feed was a ‘public forum’ and that his blockings were unconstitutional. Mr. Trump appealed the ruling, and the case went before a three-judge panel in Manhattan last week. The judges seemed skeptical of Mr. Trump’s contention that he was acting in a personal, not official, capacity when he blocked people.”
–Colin Moynihan, “If Trump Can Legally Block Critics on Twitter, Your Local Politician May Do It, Too,” The New York Times online, April 3, 2019