Trump Twitter Account: Judge Rules President Can't Block Critics On Social Media Platform

President Donald Trump’s Twitter account often gives Americans an unfiltered look at the Commander-in-Chief’s thoughts. Trump’s tweets regularly generate headlines on their own, and when his account briefly disappeared for about 10 minutes back in November, the popular social network stood still.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to see the president's tweets. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald decided that Trump infringed upon First Amendment rights by blocking users who were critical of his policies on Twitter.

The decision came more than two months after Buchwald recommended that Trump merely mute those whose tweets bother him rather than block them. She presided over the case, which was prompted by a lawsuit filed by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute.

The Knight Institute posted Buchwald’s written decision in full Wednesday.

The group’s case was always predicated on the idea that Trump’s tweets, moreso than any other user of the platform, are a matter of public interest. In their view, anyone who was blocked from seeing them was missing out on important public discourse.

Buchwald agreed, ruling in favor of the Knight Institute.

“While we must recognize, and are sensitive to, the president’s personal First Amendment rights, he cannot exercise those rights in a way that infringes the corresponding First Amendment rights of those who have criticized him,” Buchwald wrote.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of seven Twitter users who were blocked by the president for tweeting messages at him that were critical of his policies. The @realDonaldTrump account at the center of the case has been Trump’s personal online soapbox for several years, generating ire long before he was even a presidential candidate.

The ruling could set an interesting precedent for the Twitter accounts of other public officials and highly visible figures who are active on the platform.