The Courts Still Don’t Understand Trump’s Twitter Feed
An appeals court ruling that says the president can’t block followers is actually bad for free speech.
Who’s in charge here? Twitter, that’s who.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergIt’s gratifying when the courts stand up to President Donald Trump’s abuses of executive power. But the federal appeals court that held Tuesday that Trump can’t block users from his personal Twitter account doesn’t fit into that paradigm. Although its decision will be hailed by some as a win for free expression, it’s actually based on a misconception about our social media accounts — one the U.S. Supreme Court is going to have to fix.
Here’s the basic problem: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit assumed in its opinion that Trump’s Twitter account was either “private” — in effect, Trump’s own property to do with as he wishes — or else “public,” in the sense that the account was a government-controlled space in which the First Amendment should apply.