Well, at least the Supreme Court did something right.
The Supreme Court has just dismissed a case against President Trump that declared it was unconstitutional for him to block people on Twitter as President.
Ultimately the Supreme Court mooted the case because ” Trump is no longer in office and Twitter has blocked him”.
Justice Clarence Thomas made an interesting statement in the decision, stating that President Trump had the power to block users but then Twitter went ahead and blocked “all Twitter users from interacting with his messages”.
Thomas is absolutely right, why is the Supreme Court looking at a case against President Trump for “violating the 1st Amendment” when Big Tech companies are the ones who are really suppressing free speech.
With Trump barred from Twitter, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case on whether his blocking people there violated their rights.
Justice Thomas used his dissent to make a different argument: That social networks should be regulated like utilities. https://t.co/OCuT6MzxR5
— NPR (@NPR) April 6, 2021
U.S. Supreme Court brings end to Trump Twitter fight https://t.co/m9K9SUEmYE pic.twitter.com/4Nt0kQIY7R
— Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) April 5, 2021
Fox News covered the Supreme Court decision:
The Supreme Court on Monday deemed former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a ruling that said it was unconstitutional for him to block critics moot, after a lower court considered his page to be a protected public forum
The court called for the case to be dismissed, as Trump is no longer in office and Twitter has blocked him from the platform. Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the decision in light of Trump no longer being president, but the conservative jurist illustrated the complexity of the matter given that Trump ultimately did not have full control over his own account.
“[I]t seems rather odd to say that something is a government forum when a private company has unrestricted authority to do away with it,” Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against Trump, claiming that as president, he used his Twitter account to discuss political matters and therefore the interactive participation of commenting on his tweets was considered a public forum protected by the First Amendment. Blocking those who criticized him, therefore, was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, they had ruled.
Thomas noted that while Trump had the power to block other users, Twitter was then able to block “all Twitter users from interacting with his messages” by banning his account altogether.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated a long-running case that took aim at former President Donald Trump for blocking his critics on Twitter while in office https://t.co/bETk773KOE pic.twitter.com/JIL7FMKemB
— Forbes (@Forbes) April 5, 2021
The Associated Press got the scoop too:
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case over former President Donald Trump’s efforts to block critics from his personal Twitter account.
The court said there was nothing left to the case after Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter and ended his presidential term in January.
The court also formally threw out an appeals court ruling that found Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion arguing that the bigger issue raised by the case, and especially Twitter’s decision to boot Trump, is “the dominant digital platforms themselves. As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms.”
Thomas agreed with his colleagues about the outcome of the case, but said the situation raises “interesting and important questions.”
Justice Thomas’s remarks in the decision clearly show that he is prepared to take on Big Tech companies himself.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: Supreme Court will have 'no choice' but to take on Big Techhttps://t.co/lK1sOPxcWT pic.twitter.com/iOH1yhovQC
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) April 6, 2021
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