Trump loses bid to block complainers from presidential Twitter account

President Trump’s main Twitter account is a public forum and he cannot block users from it, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, rejecting the president’s efforts to police his followers.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it wasn’t ruling on whether Twitter as a whole can exclude users, nor whether an official must allow access to a private account.

But the judges said when a public official uses a social media account for public business — as Mr. Trump regularly does with his @realDonaldTrump account — it’s a public forum, and First Amendment protections apply.

That means people who want to comment on Mr. Trump’s postings cannot be banned because they disagree with him. And those replies are not government speech, which means the government doesn’t have an interest in policing them.

“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,” Judge Barrington D. Parker wrote in the court’s opinion.