7/9/2019

COURTS/SOCIAL MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump has been violating the Constitution by blocking people from following his Twitter account because they criticized or mocked him, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday [7-9-19]. The ruling could have broader implications for how the First Amendment applies to the social-media era. Because Mr. Trump uses Twitter to conduct government business, he cannot exclude some Americans from reading his posts — and engaging in conversations in the replies to them — because he does not like their views, a three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled unanimously. The ruling was one of the highest-profile court decisions yet in a growing constellation of cases addressing what the First Amendment means in a time when political expression increasingly takes place online. It is also a time, Judge Barrington D. Parker wrote, when government conduct is subject to a ‘wide-open, robust debate’ that ‘generates a level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen.’”

Charlie Savage, “Trump Can’t Block Critics From His Twitter Account, Appeals Court Rules,” The New York Times online, July 9, 2019