Last year, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that Donald Trump (a man whose unhinged tweeting has ranged from boosting neo-Nazi propaganda and slamming critics to worrying the military about nuclear war) could not block critics on Twitter, finding his feed is a public forum and that blocking his haters amounted to a violation of the First Amendment. Well, he’s still fighting that ruling in the appeals process, with the Justice Department defending the blocks before a three-judge panel in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.
It doesn’t appear to be going so well for the president’s itchy blocking finger! According to reports in Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and CNN, the three judges in question seemed rather skeptical of the DOJ’s claim that what goes down on @realDonaldTrump is between the president and his Twitter enemies, rather than between the federal government and the U.S. populace. Instead, they seemed amenable to the plaintiffs, users who at one time or another were blocked by Trump, and are being represented in the suit by the Knight First Amendment Institute.
via Trump’s Legal Battle to Keep Blocking Critics on Twitter Doesn’t Seem to Be Going So Hot
