Appeals court bars Trump from blocking critical Twitter followers

President Trump has frequently accused social media companies of violating constitutional free-speech protections. When he blocked Twitter followers for criticizing him, he ran afoul of the same standard, a federal appeals court says.

While the president set up his @realdonaldtrump account, which has more than 60 million followers, more than eight years before he gained public office, he blurred the lines by billing it as belonging to the 45th president and using it to make policy statements, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found in a ruling on Tuesday. Those include announcing the dismissal of former White House cheif of staff Reince Priebus and discussing North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.