Interesting essay from the Consumerist website seems to indicate that the answer is more complicated than it seems. To dumb-down the article, on the one hand Twitter’s rules allow you, as a private citizen, to block anyone for any reason. On the other hand The President just isn’t any average private citizen-He is a very high official that every citizen should have the right to directly praise or condemn as the need arises. As a letter sent to him said
The other problem, aside from him not hearing from citizens that disagree with him is that
In my opinion, he is treating what he is using as a primary(and thus, semi-governmental) means of communication as he did/does his pep rallies-letting the fans in and kicking out the naysayers.
Now, I am not a lawyer and cannot comment authoritatively on whether this is legal, but I certainly find it unethical at the very least.
I don’t think so. The First Amendment guarantees a right to speech, not a right to be heard. You have the right to petition for a redress of grievances, but not a right to actually receive redress. Grieve away!
This is dumb. It’s trivial to read someone’s tweets if you’ve been blocked. You make another twitter account (it’s free!) and follow them passively with that account.
In this case, the President is blocking citizens he finds unfavorable from directly addressing him using the means of communication he seems to favor the most. I don’t think the First Amendment works if your right to communicate with a branch of the Government is curtailed to this extent. It’s like saying "We are letting you type whatever you want to The President…but it’s not going to get anywhere near him. Enjoy your “Free Speech”! What are the consequences if he blocks certain members of Congress or judges from SCOTUS from contacting him via his favorite method of communication?
I mean, I hate Donald Trump as much as the next guy but c’mon. “He seems to favor the most” is a rather vague thing to hang a court case on. No one has unfettered access of communication to the President; you don’t know Obama’s cell phone number, George W. Bush could have blocked anyone’s email address from his .gov account, and you couldn’t just stroll in to the Oval Office during the Reagan administration to give him a piece of your mind.
The right to petition the government does not give someone unfettered access to the President via any medium of their choosing.
If members of Congress are trying to reach him through Twitter they’re idiots, and the SCOTUS shouldn’t be calling him up at all, so that’s a strange question to ask.
I mean, I hate Donald Trump as much as the next guy but c’mon. “He seems to favor the most” is a rather vague thing to hang a court case on. No one has unfettered access of communication to the President; you don’t know Obama’s cell phone number, George W. Bush could have blocked anyone’s email address from his .gov account, and you couldn’t just stroll in to the Oval Office during the Reagan administration to give him a piece of your mind.
The right to petition the government does not give someone unfettered access to the President via any medium of their choosing. FDR’s “favored” means of communication was the radio, but you could not have sued to force him to listen to your radio broadcast.
If members of Congress are trying to reach him through Twitter they’re idiots, and the SCOTUS shouldn’t be calling him up at all, so that’s a strange question to ask.
The more appropriate question is whether Obama refused to give anyone his phone number as a result of viewpoint-based discrimination. Trump doesn’t have to Tweet, or read anyone else’s Tweets, but arguably he has an obligation to allow equal access to all members of the public at least with respect to the content of their comments.
I could have sworn I said that I was not qualified to judge on the legality of the situation, but was also concerned about the ethics of this situation.
I don’t believe I asked for unfettered access-cutting off what might very well be an ordinary citizen’s primary access to this President so that(for the most part) eventually the whole fucking country is an echo chamber for his actions and view as far as he is concerned is disconcerting to me.
There is no First Amendment right to follow the President on Twitter. No court has ever considered the First Amendment’s right of petition (or any right contained therein) so expansively as to infer that the blocking of particular people could constitute viewpoint discrimination.
Of course, the law is always evolving, and a future Twitter-product may be so immersed in the very lives of our citizenry that meaningful communication of any kind is impossible without it. At that point, perhaps a short hovercar ride over to your lawyer, just recently back from the Lunar Spa, would produce a viable First Amendment complaint.
But not in this century.
Ethically, I don’t see Trump has any ethical boundaries I recognize, and even if he did, this isn’t one I’d find appalling if he lacked.
Does it make any difference that there is now a segment of Americans that cannot directly read what the Press Secretary called official communications from the President?
There isn’t any First Amendment right to directly address the President.
Yes, it’s a lot like that. It’s also a lot like writing a letter - I doubt any politician at the national level spends his time reading everything people send him.
They will have to send an email to Hillary, and Putin will forward it to Trump within the hour. Easy-peasy.
I wouldn’t see it as a first amendment problem, but it might be an access to government information problem. I’m not sure what regulations would apply.
The WH could guarantee access by making all of his tweets available on a separate site, one with no reply function.
Is the Twitter account for personal use and thus The President is perfectly right in making personal decisions to block people from attempting to give their opinions on his actions?
I think this quote from the linked article shows that he is using it as an official communications channel:
That’s right-his own press secretary states The President’s personal Twitter account is being used to release official statements, and that anything that he Tweets is to be considered an official statement from the President.
I’m obviously not a fan of the Trumpster fire, but his Twitter account is his Twitter account. Seems to me he can block whoever the hell he wants. Are we to suggest that he can’t block all of those fake accounts?
I’m not even sure I buy into the argument that his tweets are subject to public records laws. I’m not a constitutional lawyer but I think that even president can have his own personal accounts and use them however he chooses. That account predated his presidency.
I’m sorry, but I distinctly remember posting a direct
quote from the President’s own press secretary that stated that anything posted from his so-called “private” Twitter is to considered
This puts it far beyond the personal conversation level, I think.
I’m not sure I buy that twitter is his favorite means of communication, but even if it is, I don’t see how any of that violates the First Amendment.
You don’t have a First Amendment right to communicate with the government. You have a right to do certain things, but communication is a two-party process, and you don’t have a right to force the other party to do anything. Your right is to not to have the government stop you from trying. There’s no right to make them listen.
The First Amendment doesn’t require anyone in the government to open mail you send to them, to answer the phone when you call, or to read the sign you’re carrying as you parade outside their windows.
It protects your right to do all those things. Whether you get your message across isn’t part of it.
It is in fact just like that. And so what. I don’t see that as appreciably different from any other President. It’s not like random citizens get to call and talk to the President on the phone.
If he’s blocking them on twitter, it’s probably because he read at least one thing that they said to him he didn’t like. That’s vastly more communication than most critics of most presidents get!
Nothing? You keep mentioning that twitter is his favorite method of communication as though that were legally relevant. I’m not convinced it is.
If the telephone were his favorite method of communication, would refusing to answer based on caller ID be a violation of the First Amendment, in your conception of it?
Why doesn’t the White House disable all comments on his tweets? I’m serious. If he doesn’t allow comments that disagree with him, what value is there to the comments except to stroke his fragile ego? (OK, I suspect that’s exactly what President Snowflake wants, but I don’t think it’s healthy.)
What do you mean they can’t read it? I don’t have a Twitter account at all and I can read his tweets: x.com
I suppose “a segment of Americans” without computers / smart phones / Internet access can’t read them either, but the same lack-of-access argument could have been made about Americans who didn’t own a television back in JFK’s day, or a radio in FDR’s day, or were illiterate in Washington’s day.