President of the United States wants to fight for the right to block criticism!
Washington (pte013/08/21/2020/10:30) - In the fight for the right to block unpleasant critics on Twitter, US President Donald Trump is now going to the US highest court, the Supreme Court. Because in July 2019 an appeals court had a first instance judgment confirmed that he was not allowed to do that. The argument at the time: Trump was using Twitter as a public forum, so blocks violated the First Amendment. Of course, the current complainant still sees things differently.
Just no criticism
Trump doesn't like criticism, which is why he sometimes simply used the "block" button on Twitter. This has been bothering the judiciary since 2017 and is now before the final court. A key point of contention: The original plaintiff, Knight First Amendment Institute http://knightcolumbia.org, views Trump's activities on Twitter as communication by a government representative in a public forum, which means that any censorship - especially blocking users he dislikes - is a violation of the law means freedom of expression. Previous instances have agreed with this interpretation.
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“The President uses his account to speak to the public, not to offer parts of the public a forum to talk to him and each other,” says the US Department of Justice http://justice .gov filed a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court ruling. “Government officials cannot suppress opinions just because they disagree with the message,” emphasizes Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. The Supreme Court should therefore dismiss Trump's petition.
Endgame in the dispute
Trump's Twitter blocks against critics led to the Knight First Amendment Institute's original lawsuit in 2017, which was upheld in 2018. The original ruling was upheld by an appeals court in July 2019. Going to the Supreme Court is now the end game in this dispute. Thanks to replacements in the Trump era, conservative judges are in the majority there, which should fuel Trump's hopes of a final victory.
Depending on how quickly the Supreme Court comes to a decision in the case, it could have fundamental but little practical significance. Because if Trump loses the election on November 3, 2020 and accepts that, he would no longer be a government representative as of noon on January 20, 2021 (Washington time) - and as a private individual would probably be able to block to his heart's content on his Twitter account.
Article image: Shutterstock / By Anton Khodakovskiy
Source: pte
Notes:
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