In a 75-page decision, Judge Naomi Buchwald said Trump, as a federal official, is not exempt from constitutional obligations to refrain from "viewpoint discrimination." Should Trump ignore the ruling, analysts say, future litigation could force Twitter to unblock Trump's followers unilaterally. Trump blocked them on Twitter, preventing them from seeing his tweets from their account or interacting with them. Importantly, the ruling identifies only parts of Trump's account as a public forum subject to First Amendment protections, not the entire account nor the rest of Twitter. For a public forum to exist, the government has to own or control it, he said, but in this case, Twitter also controls Trump's account.

Source: Washington Post May 23, 2018 17:41 UTC