Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-twitter/trump-unblocks-more-twitter-users-after-u-s-court-ruling-idUSKCN1LE08Q

by tareqak • 8 years ago

105 82 8 years ago

reuters.com

Mithorium• 8 years ago

Someone have a readable version? Article shows up for 250ms on my screen then disappears leaving only the reuters header, tried switching browsers and everything

jrace• 8 years ago

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president’s account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on August 10 sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that had remained blocked from Trump’s @RealDonaldTrump account. The seven users who filed suit had their accounts unblocked in June.

The 41 blocked users include a film producer, screenwriter, photographer and author who had criticized President Trump or his policies. At least 20 of those individuals said on Twitter that Trump had unblocked them on Tuesday.

The 41 users were not a comprehensive list of those blocked by Trump. Rosie O’Donnell, a comedian, said on Twitter late Tuesday that she remained blocked.

The White House did not immediately comment late Tuesday.

The ruling has raised novel legal issues. The Internet Association, a trade group that represents Twitter, Facebook Inc, Amazon.com, and Alphabet Inc, filed a brief in the case earlier this month that did not back Trump or the blocked users but urged the court to “limit its decision to the unique facts of this case so that its decision does not reach further than necessary or unintentionally disrupt the modern, innovative Internet.”

Trump has made his Twitter account, with 54.1 million followers, an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics, preventing them from directly responding to his tweets.

The U.S. Justice Department said the ruling was “fundamentally misconceived” arguing Trump’s account “belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government.”

Buchwald rejected the argument that Trump’s First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact.

Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights.

The Internet Association said the court “should make clear that this case does not implicate the overwhelming majority of social media accounts throughout the Internet.”

“Despite any First Amendment status that this court might find in the ‘interactive spaces’ associated with President Trump’s account, Twitter retains authority to revoke access to both his account and the account of any user seeking

to comment on President Trump’s account,” the group said.

FILE PHOTO: The masthead of U.S. President Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account with a message about OPEC policy is seen on April 20, 2018. @realDonaldTrump/Handout via REUTERS It also warned “there is a considerable risk that any decision that may recognize isolated public forums on Twitter will be misunderstood to hold that Twitter, too, can be subject to First Amendment scrutiny. ...Twitter itself is not a state actor when it blocks or withdraws access to its account-holders or users, and it is therefore not subject to the First Amendment’s restraints.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

educationdata• 8 years ago

Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? Or this court ruling only works on Trump?

bcheung• 8 years ago

It has to do with denying citizens access to information from the government. So it would probably depend on whether public officials are using an account for official government usage or if it is personal.

mikeash• 8 years ago

Public officials would be fine blocking people on their personal accounts as long as they draw a clear line between their personal and official accounts. Trump ran afoul of the law here because he didn’t do that.

psergeant• 8 years ago

Despite being downvotes, this is on the money. Had he maintained some kind of separation between himself and the office on Twitter, it’d have been fine, but he announces policy change first on Twitter, for example.

ibejoeb• 8 years ago

This is a legitimate question and should not be downvoted.

dragonwriter• 8 years ago

Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users?

If the use of their account meets certain legal criteria which make it a limited public forum, yes; that's generally true of official government accounts, whether of an office or office holder, but can be true of notionally personal accounts if used for government purposes (as the court has evidence, including White House statements, was the case for Trump's “personal” account.)

Note that while Trump's Twitter account is the highest visibility case on this issue, there have been a number of similar cases regarding local government offices and officials accounts on various social media platforms with the same general result before the case about Trump's account was filed.

bertil4• 8 years ago

I suspect that, just like you have physical guards protecting official buildings from abuse, and their right to evacuate disruptive citizens has been established, there will be a case of a (probably local) government account willing to flag, or block a very annoying troll.

The peculiarity of this case is more that Trump’s thin skin and refusal to understand how the First Amendment applies to him.

chollida12• 8 years ago

In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done.

1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading

and

2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time.

being the two major ones pertinent to twitter.

Other things like claiming "funding secured" when your board, bankers and supposed funders all claim otherwise are also bad and likely to get him in more trouble, but are not important to the twitter disclosure.

The solution to this is to use the newswire like everyone else in the US stock market but if he wants to use twitter, and it looks like he may no longer be able to after the SEC is done, then he'll most likely not be able to block anyone from seeing his tweets.

I'm not sure how else you can fulfill the very reasonable requirement of equal disclosure to everyone otherwise.

dwringer• 8 years ago

[deleted because I was misinformed, as pointed out by a below comment]

dfxm12• 8 years ago

Spicer's statements as press secretary represent neither a legal precedent nor necessarily the opinion of the Justice Department, though. I know you didn't specify "legal precedent", but that's the only precedent that would've mattered here. This is why this case had to be sorted out in the courts.

On the topic of Musk, the SEC has protocols that need to be followed. Even if Musk blocked 0 people, I'm sure he'd be under investigation.

chollida12• 8 years ago

A potentially crucial difference is that Donald Trump's White House Press Secretary said in a press conference in June 2017 that Trump's twitter statements should be construed as official statements by the president's office. I'm not aware of a similar precedent involving Musk.

Well Tesla has gone on record with an 8-k form that indicates that Elon's personal twitter account is able to speak for Tesla officially.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312513...

Sorry, I should have put this in my original comment so you didn't have to make your comment:(

mortenjorck2• 8 years ago

If you identify yourself as an executive of a publicly-traded company and make statements that would fall under SEC regulation, I’m pretty sure they don’t care whether or not you identify those comments as “official.”

mortenjorck2• 8 years ago

With Twitter’s gradual shift from chronological timeline to overeager algorithmic shuffle, even if Musk unblocks everyone, users could conceivably not be served a tweet that would fall under SEC regulation based solely on the algorithm deciding they would “engage” more with other content.

josteink• 8 years ago

With Twitter’s gradual shift from chronological timeline to overeager algorithmic shuffle .... deciding they would “engage” more with other content.

Ironically, every time I notice a platform I use doing this, it immediate reduces my engagement for it.

I can’t be the only one, can I?

jrockway• 8 years ago

I'm not sure I agree. I assume that the SEC is fine if you take out an ad in the New York Times to announce your news, but that requires that people know to read the ads there, that they can afford a copy of the newspaper, etc. There is no such thing as a method of notifying everyone simultaneously. Posting to a public Twitter account is as good as anything else.

yosito• 8 years ago

In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.

egypturnash2• 8 years ago

Oh I like that. Might get Twitter to actually do something about how uncivil they've let the general standard of discussion become if having that precious little checkmark meant it was impossible to block anyone.

slg• 8 years ago

In hindsight it is a little weird that blocking exists as a concept at all. When you tweet from a public account you are putting that information out into the public. It seems silly to try to prevent certain people from seeing that content and it is trivially easy for a user to circumvent that block by logging out or creating a new account. Muting seems like the most logical way for people to control who they interact with on Twitter.

s73v3r_4• 8 years ago

No, that's terrible, too. The stars of Star Wars, Episode VIII were harassed off social media by a bunch of trolls. No one should be forced off social media by trolls.

bertil4• 8 years ago

Verified accounts are not “important”, they are what is says on the tin: verified. The feature is meant to help people who were impersonated, not famous. That nuance got lost very fast on celebrities who like any pretext to feel more important, but I think we would loose a lot by not understanding what it means. For instance, employee accounts on any platform have a de facto similar role because they can be used to authenticate both company message, and more.

Verified accounts are those likely victim of abuse, and I believe that is it likely that if you suffer from impersonation, you also suffer from trolls. Verified accounts are the most likely candidate for the need for more protection.

Something else that is at stake, and something that you are explicitly asking for – but I think it‘s a serious mistake: the dichotomy between celebrities and commoners. There never were a clear gap, there, but the idea that being on TV, in the press, or owning land made you special has proven dangerous. Having a gradient from moderately interesting anyones, to popular people within their social context, to relevant expert, opinion leader, up to professionally famous people, that “smoothness” of fame is a great, empowering change that the Internet has brought and made visible.

I think we need to understand that, and adapt (currently blunt) disclosure rules to that smoothness: you can make something a little bit more famous than they are, but you can’t shift them by several orders of magnitude because the attention, grief, consequence of that is something that needs to be learnt, understood, accepted.

AnthonyMouse2• 8 years ago

and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time.

How does that work when the account is public and can be read by anyone (presumably including any blocked users) by just not signing in?

sieabahlpark• 8 years ago

Lawyering is fun

MichaelBurge• 8 years ago

If it's a reply, you can't browse their full timeline without signing in.

compsciphd• 8 years ago

I think one can make the argument that Trump and Musk might be different.

Trump by blocking users doesn't prevent the users from seeing the content (i.e. they can log out and see the content). What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president (i.e. why its a free speech issue). It's basically saying that users A, B, and C can easily engage, but by blocking D, we are going to put a road block that makes it difficult for D.

In the case of Musk, if one is claiming that blocking is discriminating who can see the content, one can make the claim that this really isn't true, all blocking does is make it more difficult to interface with musk, not to see the content.

xienze• 8 years ago

What it does do is prevent the user from easily engaging with the president

They can’t just make another account with which to tell Trump “you suck”? Ah but how will everyone else know _I_ tweeted something at Trump if _my_ handle isn’t attached to it? That’s what these people are mad about. Not that they can’t reply to Trump (they can), but that other people won’t know about that sick burn they once made that was drowned out by 30000 others.

benmowa• 8 years ago

if i can access the tweets via twitter without logging in, how can someone block me?

username3• 8 years ago

They can make their tweets private.

kbenson• 8 years ago

Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading

This whole incident sort of blows my mind. It seems like this should be Operating a Public Company 101 level knowledge, and the fact that he failed so spectacularly leads me to believe either someone at Tesla or the exchanges screwed up royally with the timing of some preliminary work and Musk didn't make sure it was done ahead of time, or he was drugged out of his mind on Sudafed or something (either because he thought it was okay or thought he could get away with it). I'm honestly not sure what's more likely given how stupidly obvious the error is.

URSpider942• 8 years ago

He’s all but admitted that he completely winged it, while driving down the highway to the airport nonetheless.

brownbat• 8 years ago

he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time.

I thought blocking just prevented you from seeing their replies.

Per this article, but it's super old:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/twitt...

Did they change how blocking works after this?

SpaceManiac• 8 years ago

Yes, I can't speak to when but Twitter displays a very obvious "You have been blocked by this user"-type message instead of their tweets if you attempt to view their profile.

blockedTwitter• 8 years ago

  has blocked people on twitter

  information must not be disseminated 
  in a way that isn't available to 
  everyone at the same time

Okay, but one needs to understand the difference between an authenticated account being BLOCKED, versus a public account's tweets being accessible to non-authenticated users.

If a twitter account posts public tweets, access to view and read is effectively unrestricted. There is no practical reason a person would be unable to view them, blocked or not, other than their choice to authenticate with twitter.

Being "blocked" just means you can't reply, while logged in as an identifiable twitter user id.

A flow chart of choices available, for how to look at a twitter feed would likely resolve this conundrum.

To argue about this is to say something like: "I could not read the disclosure, because it was on page 39 of the Wall Street Journal and page 27 of the New York Times. It needs to be on the front page, because that's the only page my clipping service sends me."

If you couldn't find a way to view a public twitter feed, how is that different from failing to take the initiative to turn to page 27 of the news paper, that can be perused for free at a news stand?

Where do you draw the line? Does not having internet access count as a restriction? What about not having a twitter account? What about not owning a computer? What about not owning a smart phone? Is making an announcement on a website not a technical restriction by default? Why or why not?

HeadsUpHigh• 8 years ago

This is pushing it sooo much that makes me wonder if you have an agenda here. Tweets can be viewed without signing in( including replies) so anyone actually has access to them. Additionally there is legal text in the Tesla shares saying "expect updates on social media".

bumholio4• 8 years ago

Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights.

Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They can still comment, on their own pages, in their own articles, but their comments will not have similar visibility to the people that follow Donald Trump and related conversations.

And I think the court overreached to call it a violation of the rights to free speech. Because what the commenters really want is visibility, they want to piggy back on the large audience Trump's tweets have and exploit the way Twitter's algorithm highlights such replies, especially if they are 'considered important' though their own retweets, likes etc.

For example, I want to produce an one hour rant about how Donald Trump is a cretin that damages the US and the world, and have it uploaded on the White House website - an official communication tool of the US government - so that it has proper visibility. But the White House can rightfully deny that request without violating my freedom of speech. Twitter is a multi-user version of a similar software, which unlike whitehouse.gov is configured by default to allow such posts on other's users pages.

beager• 8 years ago

I wonder if the decision comes down to that some people have the ability to be a part of the conversation on Twitter, but not the people that Trump has blocked, and therefore that's considered unequal treatment.

To follow your analogy, nobody can post their podcast on the White House's website. If Donald Trump somehow had replies completely turned off for his Twitter, I don't think a case could be made that first amendment rights were being infringed.

bumholio4• 8 years ago

Well, that discrimination exists on the current White House site. I just went there and on the front page I found this article, that quotes some people friendly to Trump's policies, many of them (ironically) sourced from tweets:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/wtas-support...

So why should these people be cited, but not others critical to the administration? Who gets to make that decision, and why can't they make a similar decision on Twitter itself?

hello_marmalade• 8 years ago

Sure, but that's exactly the problem. The President having direct control over the visibility of somoene's speech. It's one thing if someone simply isn't popular, and therefore their speech isn't widely seen. It's another for the President to specifically suppress your speech.

It really does constitute a first amendment violation, because it is an active decision to suppress the specific speech of specific individuals.

iand• 8 years ago

How does one account muting another suppress their speech? Everyone else still sees the tweet.

rpiguy2• 8 years ago

The judiciary acting against Trump in this case may ultimately work against them. This judge just invented the concept of free speech rights on the internet, even on a private platform like Twitter.

I fully understand that legally this is very different the issue of Facebook or Twitter "censoring" conservatives (and as a conservative, I actually support their right as private companies to operate as they see fit), and that the judge's ruling is on the basis of access to information citing the first amendment right to free speech, but this ruling opens the door into an uncharted legal area.

Once the government gets intwined in these kinds of issues there are usually unforeseen consequences.

bertil4• 8 years ago

The amicus brief from the Internet Alliance makes that fear very clear: they demanded clarification that those decisions only apply to interactions with accounts that are clearly used as policy tool by the US Government.

For me, the fact that this is the personal account and not @potus is the outlying factor. The court was explicit that, because policy was announced from that account, it made it a Government tool, subject to a lot of rules. To me, this is a smart move, warning the next President: make sure that all communications where you use the power of the office are from @potus, because otherwise, National Archive will get into your DMs. If encourages to define a line between the West and the East Wing (the personal residency) and extend it to social media.

rpiguy2• 8 years ago

Yes but if the primary argument is based around the idea that everyone must have access to these “public channels” because their first amendment rights guarantee them a right to the information from the President and to be part of the conversation then a plausible argument can be made that Twitter, etc. cannot ban anyone from their site, or Facebook for that matter since Trump also uses it as a public forum. Even Nazis get their first amendment rights.

Furthermore this opens the door for a President to turn any private space into a “public forum” by using it for official government business.

The whole amicus just opens a Pandora’s box and would likely be struck down if the President cared enough to challenge it. It benefits Trump more to let this ruling stand as he attempts to muscle Twitter, Facebook, etc. into changing the hate speech rules they use to suspend conservative accounts.

paulpauper2• 8 years ago

If Trump (or anyone) blocks you but you still want to read his tweets:

Chrome incognito mode or log out of Twitter

problem fixed lol

craftyguy2• 8 years ago

El Presidente should not have the power to exclude certain citizens from their communications.

conanbatt• 8 years ago

I agree, and find the argument kinda funny, but is twitter really that?

You can make a new account or even ghost it to see it, not like its truly barring a user.

jamesrom• 8 years ago

You must not have read the post you are replying too.

factsaresacred• 8 years ago

So how does this fit into the "Twitter is a private company" argument when users complain about their free speech rights after being suspended?

If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution".

If Twitter suspends someone for their views are they violating free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?

Obviously there's many ways to interact with Twitter while suspended - similarly there are many ways to read Trump's tweets while blocked.

I don't have a take, I'm just curious as to what this may lead to.

paulpauper2• 8 years ago

the situation becomes messy because the next question is, should any public official not be allowed to block. This includes Congressmen accounts or senators. If Twitter retains the right to revoke individual access to the site, then Trump should be able to do what he wants with this account. IF Trump were using a federally-funded social network, then that would be a different issue

bumholio4• 8 years ago

If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets.

Since that is clearly not true, one practical effect is that it's setting a very low bar the difficulty one should overcome before claiming they are excluded from official communication by the government.

If the necessity of logging out then logging back in (or merely opening an Incognito window with a single click) is a rights violation, then surely not having any kind of access to online communication by the government is a much worse violation. So the government should either cease to use the internet or should make it available to all citizens as a basic citizen right.

s73v3r_4• 8 years ago

Twitter is a private company. The President's Twitter Account is not a private entity, though.

"If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets. This is similar reasoning as that given in court: "comments on the president’s account [are] public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution"."

If I go into one of the President's rallies and start waving my dick around, or otherwise act indecent, I can and will be asked to leave.

allthenews• 8 years ago

I don't know what is more absurd: that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation, or that a private entity is being forced to operate as a public, regulated forum.

URSpider942• 8 years ago

The second one isnt happening. Nothing in this ruling puts any burden on Twitter whatsoever. It puts a burden on Trump as to how he uses it. Trump gets to pick which forum he wants to use to make public statements, but he needs to pick fora that comply with government regulations and then use them in a compliant manner.

dexen• 8 years ago

that the president uses a private medium like twitter as a seemingly primary channel to communicate with the nation

This has happened several times in the history, as new technologies became common. Newspapers, radio, (live) TV, social media. Each expansion into the new communication channel caused major change in campaigning style, and (re-)connected the candidates with the common citizen, as the new medium owners had relatively small influence on popular opinion by themselves [1]. Also each time the political old guard was caught by surprise, still focusing on the medium of yesteryear, very much like the 2016 presidential elections.

It's worth noting Obama was a social media savvy candidate and to large extent his campaign pre-saged what went down in the 2016 elections.

[1] IMO all the Twitters and Facebooks owners still have relatively less sway than the TV and older media.

jasonkostempski• 8 years ago

I get blocking incoming messages. Why is there a feature for blocking publicly broadcast messages available even to annonymos users?

Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling

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