What the @RealDonaldTrump Ruling Actually Means
“If my fellow citizens want to go to Hell,” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once wrote, “I will help them. It’s my job.”
In our time, Twitter is the nearest thing I can think of to hell on earth. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the Southern District of New York reopened to dissenting Americans the circle of hell that hosts President Trump’s Twitter feed. The judge was just doing her job; whether appeals judges will agree with her conclusion remains to be seen.
Despite what you may have read on Twitter, the judge did not hold that Twitter is public property or that you are violating the First Amendment every time you block some troll who is fouling your feed. Her decision was careful and nuanced; it deserves careful study—but in the age of social-media, it is getting flamed.
@realDonaldTrump, identified on his page as “45th President of the United States of America,” has 52 million followers. Many Americans follow him because they wish to shower praises on his name.
