Donald Trump Isn't Legally Allowed To Block Critics On Twitter Anymore
Donald Trump's Twitter account is a bit like the sun, in that it's only going to stop being fiercely radioactive in about eight billion years' time, and if you stare at it too long you'll go blind.
However, a judge in America has ruled that you have the right to blind yourself with it even if you're mostly sending him abuse, and that Trump is acting unconstitutionally by blocking anyone on Twitter who's mean to him.
A panel of three judges on the second US circuit court of appeals in New York upheld the decision of a lower circuit judge who said that Trump's blocking policy violated the first amendment of the constitution. That's the one about free speech and all that, and the judges decided that Trump was essentially silencing people because of their political views.
"The irony in all of this is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate," wrote one of those three judges, Barrington D Parker, according to the Guardian.
Parker went on: "This debate, as uncomfortable and as unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing. In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the first amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavoured speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less."
Trump's team had argued that as the Twitter account predated Trump's time in politics it should still be considered a private individual's account. That didn't cut much ice with the judges though, given that Trump and his administration have said that it's official and is full of pictures of him doing presidential stuff - "all the trappings of an official, state-run account," as Parker put it.
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