A federal court in New York City has banned US president Donald Trump from blocking people and organisations on Twitter, ruling that this violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution, that is also known as the freedom of expression or free speech law. The court ruled that, since the @realdonaldtrump handle is now government-run, and is used as a tool for the conduct of government business—Trump has made many a policy announcement, and communicated with world leaders via the handle—it constitutes a public forum within Twitter’s “interactive space”, and that Trump’s blocking individual of accounts was unconstitutional. While it can be argued that the best solution for all concerned would have been if Trump had simply kept ignoring critics and trolls instead of blocking them, the fact is that banning him from blocking other Twitter users—an option available to other Twitter users and public figures who may or may not have a bearing on US policies—violates his First Amendment rights. Many have hailed the ruling for making a distinction between Trump’s account and a private citizen’s.
The ruling crucially distinguishes between the President’s Twitter account—which, like public parks, is under government control—and private citizens’ accounts. In an ideal world, being a public personality and a head of government shouldn’t be a liability for any individual, including Trump, whose tweets, to put it mildly, have been unsavoury. He may have used the @realdonaldtrump handle to make announcements, but, whether these can be treated as official US announcements is really a matter of debate. Some of the tweets sent out from the handle are less than charitable towards North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un. And yet, despite the many tense moments, a North Korea-US summit meeting is being talked about today, even though no one’s quite certain if it will eventually happen or not. Also, what matter of public policy is “covfefe”? If Trump, the person, is ridiculed for tweeting something meaningless, and not the US government, shouldn’t it mean that the account from which he tweets this is to be treated as “personal”, as well?
