The Justice Department is appealing a recent decision by a federal judge who said President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment rights of his critics when he blocked them on Twitter.
Late last month, Judge Naomi Buchwald made a ruling in the Southern District of New York that said Trump’s Twitter blocking was unconstitutional.
On Monday, Trump and Daniel Scavino Jr., the White House director of social media who was also named as a defendant in the initial lawsuit, filed a notice of appeal in U.S. District Court, NPR reports.
The lawsuit was initially brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a group of Twitter users who were blocked by the president.
Two weeks ago, Buchwald said Trump’s tweets were essentially a digital space acting as a public forum.
The president has used the social media platform to announce government business, including that Christopher Wray would be his choice to lead the FBI and that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin would be replaced.
“Though Twitter is a private (though publicly traded) company that is not government-owned, the President and Scavino nonetheless exercise control over various aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account,” Buchwald wrote.
You can read all of NPR’s report here.
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