The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lower court ruling that former President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment rights of critics he blocked on
Justice Clarence Thomas Takes Aim At Tech And Its Power ‘To Cut Off Speech’
By Bobby Allyn
April 5, 2021
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lower court ruling that former President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment rights of critics he blocked on Twitter.
Lawyers for those Trump blocked on Twitter argued that the former president’s Twitter account functioned as an official source of information about the government, leading a federal appeals court to rule that Trump’s blocking amounted to illegally silencing their viewpoints.
But Trump is no longer in office, and Twitter has permanently banned him from its platform over glorifying violence. So the lower court’s ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should be tossed, the Supreme Court ruled, instructing the court to dismiss the case as “moot,” or no longer active.
As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a long-pending First Amendment case over former President Donald Trump's blocking of Twitter critics on Monday. But the order sparked another eyebrow-raising opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas suggesting ways to regulate social media platforms amid outcry from conservatives over alleged censorship.
Can Congress stop Twitter from blocking users? Thomas considers idea as Supreme Court vacates Trump decision
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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas considered ways that Congress could regulate Twitter and other digital platforms in a concurrence Monday to the high court’s decision to vacate a decision involving former President Donald Trump.
Thomas concurred when the Supreme Court vacated an appeals court decision holding that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked his critics on Twitter. The Supreme Court said it was instructing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New York to dismiss the case as moot.