The following was written by Mark Meckler and was originally published on his Patheos blog.
This week, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled President Donald Trump could not block people on Twitter without violating the First Amendment.
Yes, you read that correctly.
“Blocking” an account is just a way to limit interaction with someone on the social media platform. They can view your tweets, but they can’t interact with you. If a person is logged out of their block account, they still can view the tweets of the person who blocked them. It’s just more inconvenient. Which, of course, is why the President blocked various people. Those who want to insult the President can easily tag him in a bunch of tweets and clog up his feed. Blocking makes that impossible.
Okay, so what does this have to do with the First Amendment? In my opinion, nothing.
Trump’s personal Twitter account is not “owned or controlled by the government” because he uses it for official purposes. Saying otherwise is preposterous. The forum is owned and controlled by Twitter, no one else. We’ve learned this the hard way over the years as people lose their posting privileges in what seems like a rather willy nilly pattern. (Remember in November of 2017 when Trump lost his Twitter privileges and the internet went nuts? That was a “human error.” In other words, an employee who was leaving his job decided to go out with a bang. But that lone act of a very low level employee shows you who actually holds the power.)
Read these terms of service, if you don’t believe me:
We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Services at any time for any or no reason, including, but not limited to, if we reasonably believe: (i) you have violated these Terms or the Twitter Rules, (ii) you create risk or possible legal exposure for us; (iii) your account should be removed due to prolonged inactivity; or (iv) our provision of the Services to you is no longer commercially viable. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you by the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account, depending on the circumstances.
Twitter, for better or for worse, is in control of Twitter. The social media giant even has weaved in some pretty sweeping language about its ownership all of our tweets — not just the President’s:
By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.
They have a right to be this controlling, because Twitter — it goes without saying — owns Twitter. Trump (and all of us who are on it) have to speak according to the rules they deem appropriate. Though we can argue all day about whether their rules are fair, the bottom line: Trump’s personal Twitter account is not a government forum.
This is just the latest ill-conceived ruling against the President.
Want to limit the power of the overreaching federal judiciary? Click the blue button below to learn more about the COS Project and how you can get involved.
