Does surprise court ruling mean Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can no longer legally block conservative content?

( Natural News ) In a move that surprised both Trump supporters and anti-Trump activists alike, a federal judge ruled this week that President Trump can’t legally block Twitter users from viewing his feed on the basis that it is a “designated public forum” and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The judgement comes nearly a year after a group of Trump critics filed a lawsuit, alleging that the President had violated their First Amendment rights by blocking them from reading his tweets. “The @realDonaldTrump account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another,” the lawsuit said. A team of lawyers from the Justice Department jumped to Donald Trump’s defense, arguing that he had every right to block certain users in the same way that he is allowed to ignore certain individuals when addressing a crowd of people or reporters. However, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Naomi Buchwald disagreed, arguing that the exclusion of certain clients on a public forum was in violation of the First Amendment. Many conservatives and Trump supporters were taken back by the decision, and for good reason. On the surface, it seems as though it’s the president’s rights that are being violated and not the rights of his Twitter followers, because he is essentially being told that he is not allowed to determine who he wants to allow on his own personal Twitter feed. A loss that may lead to a bigger win It’s not all bad, though. As a matter of fact, Chris Menahan of Information Liberation recently argued that Judge Buchwald’s ruling […]

Click here to view full article