Liberals should not have been so quick to change the rules for politicians online.
When a federal judge declared that President Trump, as a politician, couldn’t block his Twitter followers, the ruling applied to other politicians as well. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is being sued by former Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind for blocking him on Twitter. After Cortez tried to get the case dismissed, a judge demanded on September 27 that she appear in court to explain why she blocked Hikind and 19 other individuals.
Ocasio-Cortez’s aide explained in court that the Congresswoman blocked people if their commentary was not “constructive.” This was not enough for Brooklyn judge Frederic Block. He demanded that Ocasio-Cortez come to court herself to explain her reasons for blocking people.
In 2018, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald stated that President Trump was “violating the Constitution” by blocking people online. Twitter was described as a “designated public platform” on which the President could not block people. This definition is being upheld in court as well for Ocasio-Cortez.
If Twitter is ruled again to be a “designated public platform,” this might mean that the company would have to reinstate banned accounts under First Amendment principles.