President Trump sued for blocking people on Twitter

[mudwhistle]

When will President Trump realize that his Twitter-mania is his own worst enemy? It makes him vulnerable to opponents.

President Trump sued for blocking people on Twitter - BBC News
President Donald Trump has been party to an eye-watering 4,000 lawsuits over the last 30 years, US media say.

And now the mogul turned commander-in-chief has attracted one more, after seven people sued him for blocking them on Twitter.

Mr Trump is an avid user of the social media forum, which he deploys to praise allies and lambast critics.

The lawsuit was filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute, a free speech group at Columbia University.

The seven Twitter users involved claim their accounts were blocked by the president, or his aides, after they replied to his tweets with mocking or critical comments.

People on Twitter are unable to see or respond to tweets from accounts that block them.

The legal complaint argues that by blocking these individuals, Mr Trump has barred them from joining the online conversation.

It calls the move an attempt to "suppress dissent" in a public forum - and a violation of their First Amendment right to free speech.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and the president's social media director Daniel Scavino are also named in the lawsuit.

Last month, Mr Spicer said Mr Trump's tweets were considered "official statements by the president of the United States".

The president's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account has 33.7m followers, while the official @POTUS account has 19.3m.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said the president's love of Twitter means it has become "an important source of news and information about the government".

"The First Amendment applies to this digital forum in the same way it applies to town halls and open school board meetings," he said.

"The White House acts unlawfully when it excludes people from this forum simply because they've disagreed with the president."

According to the institute, the account's blocking habit should be a concern for everyone.

Why? Because even if they can read the president's tweets, what they see has been consciously cleansed of criticism.

 

[Divine Wind]

Lets take it to the court then...

Agreed.

The key point about anyone walking up and voicing opinion in court is that those rules apply to everyone, not just white males, Jews, black females or, as in this case, Liberals.

 

[Divine Wind]

An excellent example of your entire intellectual acumen and your life's failures.

 

[Divine Wind]

More evidence Trump's Tweets cause him more grief than they are worth:

At six month mark, here are six of Donald Trump's most controversial tweets
With just 140 characters, President Trump can spark a firestorm. We've witnessed time and again in the early days of his presidency.

As Trump hits his six months in office, here are six of his most controversial missives on social media.

1. Wire tapped
Back in March, Trump accused his predecessor Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower ahead of the 2016 presidential election.


Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

5:35 AM - 4 Mar 2017


Accusing a president of politically motivated surveillance of a U.S. citizen is a serious charge – and yet Trump did not offer any evidence of his claim. What's more, the White House did not immediately offer an explanation for the tweet sent on a Saturday.

It's still unclear what exactly prompted this accusation. President Trump appeared on Fox News on March 15 to say that he read a New York Times story on Jan. 20 that referred to the wiretapping (Politifact found that the story in question did not actually say Obama wiretapped Trump).

Since then, officials have come forward to denounce the president's claim, including leaders of both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, and then-FBI director James Comey.

2. Witch hunt
On May 17, the Justice Department announced that former FBI director Robert Mueller would be a special counsel overseeing the ongoing investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians who sought to influence the election by hacking Democrats.

A day later, the president fumed on Twitter.

Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!

6:52 AM - 18 May 2017

"Witch hunt" has since become Trump's preferred term for the ongoing probes, which have only widened after the president fired his FBI director James Comey and the special counsel was appointed.

The term sparked controversy on Twitter for being demonstrably untrue (for related news, please see: our list of politicians treated more unfairly than Trump). And Rep. Seth Moulton, who, you know, represents a town known for actual witch hunts, replied: "As the Representative of Salem, MA, I can confirm that this is false."

3. Comey tapes
In the days after Trump abruptly fired the FBI director, Trump suggested on Twitter he secretly recorded his conversations with James Comey – and that he might release those tapes.


Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

7:26 AM - 12 May 2017

Trump's tweet led to questions of whether the president had indeed taped their conversations – which the White House for weeks would not confirm or deny. Comey himself created a stir when he said, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee. (He even gave Trump permission to release them, saying they would back up his version of events.)

Lawmakers demanded the White House release any recordings, but it was all for naught, apparently. Trump tweeted on June 22 – a full 41 days after the tweet – that he "did not make, and do not have, any such recordings."

4. Enemy of the American people
We couldn't make a list of the president's controversial tweets without bringing up his favorite descriptor of many major news organizations covering his presidency – "fake news." While the president frequently denounces "fake news" coverage, one tweet about mainstream media organizations stood out above the rest: When he called media organizations "the enemy of the American People."


Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

3:48 PM - 17 Feb 2017

Media organizations and politicians immediately criticized the tweet. As the New York Timesnoted, the "enemy of the people" label is "more typically used by leaders to refer to hostile foreign governments or subversive organizations." But that hasn't stopped him from lambasting the press since then.

In another controversial tweet against the media, Trump earlier this month posted a mocked-up wrestling video of him body-slamming and beating up a character labeled as CNN. "#FraudNews," Trump tagged it, sparking a debate about whether the president was encouraging violence against the media.

5. Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough
On June 29, Trump kicked off his morning by attacking the hosts of Morning Joe in a pair of tweets.


Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

7:52 AM - 29 Jun 2017

Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

7:58 AM - 29 Jun 2017


Trump's attacks on Brzezinski in particular drew criticism, including from Trump's fellow Republicans. "Please just stop," Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska tweeted. "This isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office."

Though Trump's wife Melania Trump had pledged to create an anti-cyberbullying campaign as First Lady, the White House doubled down to defend the tweets against accusations of misogyny and lowering the civility of debate in Washington.

6. Covfefe
Will we ever truly know what happened here? Just past midnight on May 31, the president tweeted, "Despite the constant negative press covfefe" and nothing more.

Hours later, the tweet was deleted, and he followed it up with, "Who can figure out the true meaning of 'covfefe' ??? Enjoy!"


Follow
Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump
Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!

5:09 AM - 31 May 2017

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer later insisted that the president "knew exactly what he meant."

 

[EverCurious]

The only reason the MSM are feeding you fools the idea of "Trump should stop social media'ing" is because then folks wouldn't be getting the scoop straight from the President instead of through their biased filter.

I hope he never stops because I want to "know" my president, not just see an edited "picture" put out by the media.