In an effort to prove that Donald Trump’s choice to block fellow Twitter users is unconstitutional, the Knight First Amendment Institute is suing the president.
Earlier this year, President Trump made waves online when a slew of Twitter users discovered that they had been blocked from interacting with or seeing any tweets from the president.
The suit is seeking to have those blocked by the president allowed access to his Twitter account once more in the interest of constitutionality and transparency.
Besides the Knight Institute as a plaintiff, the lawsuit features a number of Trump’s blocked victims including Rebecca Buckwalter, Philip Cohen, Holly Figueroa, and several more. All claim that they were blocked by the President and have the ability to prove it.
Though this may seem much ado about nothing, especially to those who think Twitter is frivolous, the reality is that by blocking users, the President is effectively barring them access to what should be publicly available comments from the leader of our nation.
The basis of the lawsuit rests on an argument that the President’s Twitter feed is a matter of public record. Already, there is precedent for this assertion. During President Obama’s tenure, each of the tweets on his official POTUS account (the only account he had at the time) were preserved as public record.
Trump’s twitter account has created a myriad of legal battles, including the COVFEFE Act, a legislative effort proposed by a punny Congressman seeking to require by law that each of Trump’s tweets be recorded. If the act were passed, it would make illegal Trump’s frequent deleting of tweets (including the bill’s namesake, in which Trump posted an incomplete tweet, coining the term ‘covfefe’, later deleted).
Trump’s frequent use of Twitter to express his anger has gotten him into trouble. In many instances, he has made his own scandals worse by tenfold by issuing a slew of early morning tweets.
This lawsuit is just one of a great many that Trump has faced in his life, and one of many he has faced as President. Though other lawsuits like the one over his travel ban are far more important, this lawsuit against Trump concerning his Twitter habits are a good way to ensure that we are holding him accountable at every level.
