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Reuters
NEW YORK
A federal judge on Thursday expressed skepticism about whether US President Donald Trump can constitutionally block Twitter users whose views he does not like from following and retweeting from his own Twitter account.
At a hearing in Manhattan federal court, US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald asked Trump's lawyer Michael Baer whether letting Trump bar users from @realDonaldTrump would violate their First Amendment free speech rights.
She asked whether Twitter was different from a public town hall, where government officials would be unable to pull the plug from a microphone to mute speakers with unwelcome views.
"Once it is a public forum, you can't shut somebody up because you don't like what they're saying,"Buchwald said.
Baer said the appropriate analogy was not a town hall, but rather Trump choosing to walk away from someone at a public event."The president has an associational interest in deciding who he's going to spend his time with in that setting,"he said.
