The Justice Department has appealed a federal court ruling that President Trump’s move to block his critics on Twitter violated the Constitution, according to Politico.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled last month that Trump’s Twitter feed is considered a “public forum” and that a public official cannot “‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed.”
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of Twitter users that Trump has blocked.
The notice of appeal was filed by three DOJ officials in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of Trump and his social media director, according to Politico.
As Politico noted, it’s hardly a surprise that the Justice Department has opted to file an appeal. Justice Department attorney Michael Baer wrote in August 2017 that the case could prove to be harmful to the First Amendment and that dictating “that a president’s choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter,” a private company, could “violate the Constitution.”