Twitter headquarters. Credit: ALM

President Donald Trump's efforts to block certain critics from following him on Twitter is discriminatory and violates the First Amendment, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court ruling against Trump. The plaintiffs, represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, are Twitter users who were “blocked” from accessing his social media account.

“Once the president has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with,” Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote for the unanimous panel.

The panel said: “In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less.”

The panel said the ruling does not consider private social media accounts that may be used by elected officials, and does not consider whether social media companies themselves are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms.

In Trump's case, the panel said he uses the account as a way to communicate with the public about his administration.

Trump blocked Twitter users who were critical of his presidency, and a trial court judge in Manhattan last year concluded that blocking these accounts violated the First Amendment. At the time, the Knight Foundation's Jameel Jaffer praised the ruling, which he said “reflects a careful application of core First Amendment principles to government censorship on a new communications platform.”

Jaffer, the Knight Institute's executive director, said in a statement Tuesday:

“Public officials' social media accounts are now among the most significant forums for discussion of government policy. This decision will ensure that people aren't excluded from these forums simply because of their viewpoints, and that public officials aren't insulated from their constituents' criticism. The decision will help ensure the integrity and vitality of digital spaces that are increasingly important to our democracy.”

The appeals court, concluding Trump's account is a public forum, noted how often he uses his account—@realDonaldTrump—to announce official news. Trump, for instance, announced his administration's move to ban transgender service members, and he used his account to announce that he had fired his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and replaced him with John Kelly.

“The president excluded the individual plaintiffs from government‐controlled property when he used the blocking function of the account to exclude disfavored voices,” the appeals court said Tuesday.

Read the Second Circuit's decision below:

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