Court Rules Chrissy Teigen Has a Constitutional Right to Shitpost President Trump on Twitter
Donald Trump isn’t allowed to block people on Twitter anymore, according to a federal court ruling that states citizens have a First Amendment right not only to read to Donald Trump’s Twitter feed, but also to shitpost under his tweets, because it is a “public forum.”
Trump has famously blocked loads of people on Twitter, because he has exceptionally thin skin. Seriously, it’s like 90% Mystic Tan and 10% actual skin at this point. For example, everyone’s favorite celebrity shitposter Chrissy Teigen found herself blocked by Trump for tweeting “Lolllllll no one likes you.”
Lolllllll no one likes you
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 23, 2017
I told you he was thin-skinned. Let’s look at what got some other celebrities blocked by Trump.
Marina Sirtis, who played Counselor Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation mentioned Russiagate, the allegation that Trump somehow colluded with the Russia government to win the election, which was enough to get her blocked.
Andy Signore is the guy behind Honest Trailers on the Screen Junkies YouTube channel, who basically only tweeted at Trump once but still got the block.
I am so damn sick of bully @realDonaldTrump taking words out of context to act out his agenda of fear, corruption & bigotry. #NotMyPresident
— Andy Signore (@andysignore) June 4, 2017
Stephen King hadn’t even tweeted at Trump in a while when he got blocked, so apparently the President had a bit of a blocking backlog to work through. Blocklog?
Trump has blocked me from reading his tweets. I may have to kill myself.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 13, 2017
So what exactly does this ruling mean, other than a bunch of blue checkmarks trying to make a name for themselves with the #resistance can continue to swarm into the President’s Twitter feed and call him a big, stupid poopyhead without fear of being blocked and losing their ability to self-promote? I honestly have no idea, because there’s no telling how broadly this ruling will be applied if it’s upheld on its inevitable appeal.
Since the plaintiff’s argument was that being blocked violated their right to petition the government for redress of grievances, my guess is it only applies to government officials, but I’d like to know which ones. Do I have a constitutional right to send Mitch McConnell a drawing of Yertle the Turtle every day? I’d like to think I do, and if that septuagenarian Mutant Ninja Turtle tries to block me, I’ve got a federal court ruling on my side.
Also, since the court ruled that citizens have a right not only to read Trump’s Twitter but to tweet at him, doesn’t this mean that banning someone from the service is a violation of their First Amendment rights? If Trump doesn’t have the right to block people for calling him a big orange diaper baby who likes peepee, then how is Twitter allowed to restrict access to this valuable public forum?
It is of vital importance that we be allowed to read and interact with Trump’s Twitter feed, so we don’t miss intelligent, well-reasoned discourse like this.
DOUCHEBAG!
— mick bennett (@michaelbennet29) May 23, 2018
Imagine a world where we’re deprived of that. It would be horrible.
I’m also interested in how this ruling interacts with Twitter’s new policy of shadow banning people who are mean until they earn enough good boy points to show up in their follower’s feeds normally again. Will being mean to Trump not count? What about Hillary Clinton, she was a senator and is campaigning on behalf of Andrew Cuomo, is she allowed to block people? These are important questions I need to know. For science. Also to make Joe Scarborough unlock me so I can tweet at him about dead interns with reckless abandon.
