Judge to Trump: No, you can't block people on Twitter

The president can’t block his Twitter critics anymore.

A New York federal judge ruled that Donald Trump’s official POTUS Twitter account qualifies as a “public forum” and blocking users with opposing political views from interacting within it restricted their free speech, settling a case brought by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute last July.

The decision by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York says that no public official may “block” a person from their Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and that the president is no exception to the rule.

A prolific tweeter who averages 11 posts a day to his 52.2 million followers, Trump has blocked at least 90 people since last June , according to Kevin Poulsen, a contributing editor at The Daily Beast who’s been tracking it on TrumpBlocks.Me.

But they can follow him again, per the judge’s decision: Defining the space in which Trump interacts with Twitter users as a “designated public forum” meant that it must be “analyzed under the “public forum” doctrines set forth by the Supreme Court.” This gave the judge a platform to rule that the president’s actions violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.

The court chose not to enter an order against the president and his social media director Dan Scavino specifically, citing that the unconstitutional ruling of the President’s actions was enough of a declaratory judgement and should be sufficient “as no government official -- including the President -- is above the law, and all government officials are presumed to follow the law as has been declared,” the ruling said.

At best, this ruling may simply obligate the president to be more cautious with his blocking button, but it sets an even larger precedent to public officials nationwide.

As for the seven plaintiffs who brought forward the case last year – they should be seeing a whole lot more of Trump in the coming months. That is, if the president chooses to follow the ruling.