Social Media Just Got a Little More Interesting

In early March's post Anti-Trumpers May Destroy Social Media we mentioned a lawsuit pending in response to Donald Trump blocking users from his Twitter account. The verdict was that, while such a ruling would be wonderful for our interests, the case would likely be thrown out, especially since the account in question is Trump's personal (perhaps quasi-official) account, not the official @potus account. To my surprise -- and delight -- the court actually ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. They reasoned that Twitter is a public forum, thus blocking a user from commenting on Trump's tweets amounts to infringement of First Amendment rights. To quote the ruling (pdf):

This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, “block” a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States. The answer to both questions is no.

We hold that portions of the @realDonaldTrump account — the “interactive space” where Twitter users may directly engage with the content of the President’s tweets — are properly analyzed under the “public forum” doctrines set forth by the Supreme Court, that such space is a designated public forum, and that the blocking of the plaintiffs based on their political speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment.

The ruling is almost everything we dreamed of. Almost, because it specifies "public official." We'd prefer it to include all political discourse, but this will work for now. And, just a word of caution before we proceed to get carried away with this...it will surely be contested. We still have some number of months to see how this settles. While I incorrectly predicted the outcome of the initial case, I have to stick by that inclination. I don't see how this ruling stands. Still, let's entertain the notion that it does stand. The implications are wonderful!

While liberals are ecstatic to get Drumpf anyway they can, the truth is that conservative voices are suppressed on social media forums, not those of liberals and Anti-Trumpers. So many conservatives have been banned by Twitter that it has driven a market for conservative social media, such as Gab. There is no equivalent market for liberal outcasts, because they are not censored for political speech. A court ruling to protect political speech in public forums is a huge windfall for the right. (And perhaps bad news for Gab founder Andrew Torba.) At the least, any person blocked by any public official may demand restoration, at the risk of a lawsuit backed by legal precedent. The reaction of the social media outlets will be predictable. They will ban users for attacking Democrats as violations of the user agreement, while allowing those attacking Republicans to remain. That's what they're already doing. But this is now out of the hands of the corporate SJWs. It is an issue for the courts. In fact, all a user would have to do is acquire a list of the commentary that users make against Trump (the court pretends it is expressed political views, but we all they were blocked for derogatory language), use it verbatim against some Democrat official, wait to be banned, and then sue for violation of First Amendment rights. The courts are pozzed, but they are far more likely to give a fair ruling than the Silicon Valley proletariat. Let the left gloat over this outcome, but we really really want to see the ruling upheld.

Even more significant than declaring that public officials must allow all insults to remain attached to their social media presence, they categorize Twitter as a public forum. Well, not all of Twitter. They decree that "portions of the @realDonaldTrump account" constitute an "interactive space," and thus afforded public forum rights protected by Supreme Court rulings. For context, the SC has ruled that city streets in privately owned company towns are still places where First Amendment rights apply. Many civil libertarians and censored conservatives have argued that privately owned public forums like Twitter are completely analogous. Now a court has ruled in their favor, but with caveats. They've ruled that Twitter is a public forum, but only the comments section of Donald Trump's personal Twitter account. Ludicrous, to be sure. This is a political court trying to have its cake and eat it too. They want special rules that apply only to Donald Trump, which of course is exactly the opposite of what a legal outcome is supposed to be. Even if that were the case, every right-winger banned from Twitter has cause for legal redress, since they are thus blocked from the "interactive space" of Trump's account. But those disclaimers will carry no weight in either the appeals court, or later courts that take the resulting cases, who will either rule that Twitter is a public forum subject to First Amendment rights in toto, or that is is a private enterprise that can regulate speech as it wishes. The rules for Drumpf only won't hold up. The public officials clause won't likely stand either. The Supreme Court verdict they refer to has no similar clause. All otherwise legal political speech on private city streets is protected, not just lobbying grievances against public officials. Actually, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this ruling will stand after all, because the legally preposterous caveats will merely be ignored. A left-leaning judge is likely to uphold the ruling for the obvious reasons. A right-leaning judge is likely to uphold the ruling as a matter of principle, or perhaps to stick it to the social media mafia.

Just think of how conservatives couldn't get by without the help of the left. Trump's election stemmed from free hatred-fueled press. He's now having his support amongst conservatives consolidated thanks to the Mueller Dragnet. And now the liberal stranglehold on social media may be broken by a liberal court. If you love poetic justice, you've got to love this timeline.