Knight Institute v. Trump, No. 18-1691 (2d Cir.) Law Essay

Knight Institute v. Trump, No. 18-1691 (2d Cir.)
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The case, Knight Institute v. Trump, NO 18-1691 (2D CIR) was brought before the court by twitter users who were blocked from interacting and viewing President Trump’s Twitter content and messaging. Knight Institute lodged a lawsuit arguing that since the President used Twitter for official purposes, the lawsuit focused on violation of the First Amendment of the twitter users who were critical of Trump. There is expectation that American leaders support, promote and protect the right to freedom of expression in the US where the First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of expression. The Schenck v. US, Brandenburg v. Ohio and Snyder v. Phelps cases address circumstances under which freedom of speech is still protected in the First Amendment even when speech is provocative.
The Knight Institute represented the plaintiffs who had been blocked from President Trump’s account as they were critical and disked his comments. To the plaintiffs, the President’s actions violated their First Amendment and the defendants were President Trump and other officials and staff in the White House. When President first established his Twitter account he did not hold any public position, but is now the 45th President of the US. Trump has used his Twitter account to communicate with the public and his Twitter account is one of the most popular that is retweeted and commented.
Twitter is a public forum and the Court of Appeal ruled that excluding others from the in interactive based was viewpoint discrimination. The President uses his twitter account as a public official and his government cacti and not private citizen. The First Amendment mostly applies to traditional media, but has been extended to social media. Public figures who use social media to conduct their official business should not violate the First Amendment protections, by excluding those who have critical opinions.
In the case Snyder v. Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) picketed in the funeral of Lance Corporal Snyder, who died in Iraq and the WBC had done this in other cases because of their stance that the military was wrong in tolerating homosexuality. WBC had informed officials about their picketing activities at the funeral. The soldier’s father, Snyder sued based on conduct of the church members and disparaging comments online and argued this caused him emotional distress. Snyder was initially awarded $ 5 million for emotional distress linked to the picketing, but this was reversed by the Court of Appeal focusing on the First Amendment protections. In the case speech as public concern relate to what concerns a community including political and social concerns and there is general interest and news interest.
In the Snyder v. Phelps, the picketers’ speech was considered speech of public concern, which is protected, and thus, the picketers were not held liable for the tort liability under the First Amendment protections. Despite WBC’s speech being offensive and outrageous this speech was on public property and was of public concern. The case is relevant in analyzing how the concern interest issues on freedom of expression. Just...