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In response to being blocked by US President Donald Trump, Twitter (TPE:TWIT) users have sued the President for violating their constitutional rights after they were blocked from Trump’s personal Twitter account.
Since blocked users cannot read or respond to Trump’s tweets, blocking users for their political beliefs “imposes a viewpoint-based restriction on … participation in a public forum” and violates the first amendment.
Jameel Jaffer, the institute’s director, said: “It’s fair to say that this is a new frontier. the First Amendment principle is well-settled, but the applicability of that principle to this context isn’t an issue that the courts have yet had many occasions to address.”
Those blocked include Rebecca Buckwalter, who was blocked after tweeting “To be fair you didn’t win the WH: Russia won it for you.”
Philip Cohen, a University of Maryland sociology professor, was blocked when he sent a tweet to the President calling him a “Corrupt Incompetent Authoritarian”.
Songwriter, Holly Figueroa, was blocked from Trump’s account after posting an image of the Pope looking unflatteringly at Trump.
“This isn’t just about Trump, and it’s not just about Twitter,” Figueroa, wrote in the Washington Post. “It’s about ensuring that as new platforms of communication are developed, and more and more politicians use social media as a primary way to communicate with constituents, we don’t lose our ability to participate in our democracy or exercise our First Amendment rights.”
“It’s about ensuring that as new platforms of communication are developed, and more and more politicians use social media as a primary way to communicate with constituents, we don’t lose our ability to participate in our democracy or exercise our First Amendment rights.”
Katie Fallow, who is representing those blocked users said: “It’s like barring people at the door of a city council meeting because they criticised your policy,”
Justice Anthony Kennedy said: “While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace – the ‘vast democratic forums of the Internet’ in general … and social media in particular.”