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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

Nope, Twitter is not a governmental organization, therefore they're not subject to the same restrictions as Trump, who is a public official.

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the conditions of the ruling still apply though:"is a public forum and that blocking users on the basis of political speech is a violation of their free-speech rights under the First Amendment". Any american user should have access to that forum without obstruction, no?

It's funny how this would elevate his twitter account to unprecedented status, which means twitter will have to implement some bizarre measures.

Note that “public forum” is a term of art in First Amendment case law that refers to a venue owned or controlled by government, including a privately owned venue over which government exercises some control, made available for general or limited public discussion; the first amendment limits what government can do in such forums.

And this status is not an unprecedented one for government-controlled social media accounts; while the Trump case at issue here is the highest profile one to have reached a decision, it is not the first to find a government agency’s or official’s social media account to constitute a public forum in which viewpoint censorship by government of other users is prohibited.

Also, the decision constrains Trump's behavior on Twitter, it does not mandate any change to Twitter features.

If I was a government official and decided to host a public event at a private property which I paid for, where the private property said no women allowed (say it was a private club which allowed to do such), could I use that rules to prevent women from attending the event? Or would the rules of the private property either block me from utilizing them at all or be overridden in regards to my event?

> If I was a government official and decided to host a public event at a private property which I paid for, where the private property said no women allowed (say it was a private club which allowed to do such), could I use that rules to prevent women from attending the event?

Even if it were a public forum (which not all public events involving a government official are), I'm not sure that public forum law prohibits sex discrimination as well as viewpoint censorship. I can see an argument that it should (and that it shouldn't), but I don't recall. seeing any case law either way.

Depends on how a judge rules. You could be required to find another venue or to admit women regardless.

Either way, the fact that it is a private rule means it is not a public law. The government doesn't have to abide by laws you just made up for yourself on a whim. If I say "no shoes allowed on my private property" the police aren't forced to comply with that, so why would a government official at an event be required to comply with some inane sexist rule?

The government official isn't the police, but even more so, I'm not talking about the government official, but the random public who attends. I can say they aren't allowed on my property at which point it is a crime for them to be there.

A crime but not a felony nor even a misdemeanor. Trespass is a tort, and I think a 'civil tort'. So unless they're doing damage I don't think they owe anything for this 'crime'.

Misdemeanor here:

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(2d5ss4y1dr2wfo0uz3r0a3zk))/...

I wouldn't bet against there being some jurisdiction where it is a felony.

If you're the gatekeeper for who can enter and leave, it wouldn't make sense to call it a public event.

The police can ignore your rules in certain special cases when they have a legal reason to enter your property without your consent. In normal circumstances, you can certainly deny them entrance if they don't take off their shoes.

No, you can deny them entrance. A "no shoes rule" would be entirely your own device and only of concern to them insofar as it gives you a (personal) reason to deny entrance. It has no legal weight.

If you permit them to enter, and you have a no shoes rule posted, they are free to enter with shoes. Because such a sign means fuck all in the world.

The First Amendment only blocks the government from restricting speech, not anyone else. A private company can limit speech. The government cannot cause or compel that private company to limit speech.

Also it's not clear to me that Twitter has to do anything with Trump's account. The judgement is against Trump, not against Twitter. Trump isn't allowed to use the block button, but Twitter is not under any obligation to prevent him from using it illegally. Just the same that Twitter is not under any obligation to implement extra safeguards for twitter accounts owned by people whose conditions of parole restrict their use of social media--that's the user's issue, not Twitter's.

If that's the case, it is likely he can just continue to block people, I don't think he's going to unblock people suddenly because of this. If he is basically immune to most lawsuits (in general - I'm sure at some point something will break that line) then why would one judge's ruling have him change his behavior. He's pretty critical of judges already.

On the other hand, if the judge wanted to see this change, requiring Twitter to both remove (his) block button and unblock all existing users (from his account only) would more likely happen.

> If he is basically immune to most lawsuits

He's not (barring reversal on appeal) immune, or this case would never have reached a judgement.

> On the other hand, if the judge wanted to see this change, requiring Twitter to both remove (his) block button and unblock all existing users (from his account only) would more likely happen.

Judges don't have unlimited freedom to arbitrarily issue orders directing labor of nonparties to a case just because they suspect s party might not respect the judgement. There are, in any case, processes for addressing failure of a party to respect a judgement, which Trump is no more immune to regarding this judgement than he is to the case resulting in the judgement.

> There are, in any case, processes for addressing failure of a party to respect a judgement, which Trump is no more immune to regarding this judgement than he is to the case resulting in the judgement.

And what are those? For regular people, the judge can have a person jailed for contempt of court. I doubt that the POTUS is worried about that.

Theoretically impeachment, and then following that, jail.

You can be fined for contempt of court too.

The crucial part is who is doing the blocking. Twitter as a private company can block, Trump as a member of the government on an official government channel cannot. Companies do not have a constitutional obligation in the first the government does.

Oh there's definitely some path of legal wrangling that may end up compelling Twitter to do something here. In the end whether that's true or not will simply come down to a Judge and if Twitter wishes to fight further (eventually to the top court) or stop and give in. It doesn't have to be written in the constitution for someone to be compelled to do something wacky in this country.

No, those conditions only apply to public officials.

Commented above as well:

Case law would disagree. Here's a case where the Supreme court ruled that Facebook banning someone was a violation of their first amendment rights. [0] Salient quote: "Foreclosing access to social media altogether thus prevents users from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights"

Edit: as pointed out, this ruling doesn't actually disagree with what the previous comment said. It does seem similar enough to me to be relevant though so leaving it up. [0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1194_08l1.pdf

Packingham v. North Carolina [0] was about the constitutionality of the state banning users from social media - not on social networks issuing their own bans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina

Yup, corrected above.

You posted a link to a case involving a law in North Carolina. Facebook was not party to the case.

Would you please quote (from the link you posted) where it says that Facebook banned said user?

See above comments. The case doesn’t say what you think it says - it’s government that isn’t allowed to foreclose access, so the underlying cause here is Carolina’s violating legislation.

That’s a ruling about a state law, not a Facebook policy.

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