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NEWS APRIL 12, 2021 ¦ 21

The suspended Twitter account of former President Donald Trump.
Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

Trump had to block other users, Thomas said, we’re gratified that the appeals court’s reasoning has
“paled in comparison” to Twitter’s ability to remove already been adopted by other courts, and we’re con-
accounts “at any time for any or no reason.” fident it will continue to shape the way that public
“As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech officials use social media,” Knight Institute Execu-
lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital tive Director Jameel Jaffer said.
platforms. The extent to which that power matters In holding Trump’s Twitter account a pub-
for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent lic forum, a unanimous three-judge panel of the
to which that power could lawfully be modified raise Manhattan-based appeals court had noted that,
interesting and important questions,” Thomas said. as president, he often used the platform to an-
“We will soon have no choice but to address how nounce official policies or personnel moves, like
our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, his administration’s ban on transgender service
privately owned information infrastructure such as members and the firing of his first chief of staff,
digital platforms,” the justice wrote. Reince Priebus.
The Knight Institute said in a statement that the The panel noted at the time that it was not decid-
case highlighted the “foundational” principle that ing whether social media companies themselves are
public officials “aren’t insulated from the opinions of bound by the First Amendment when policing their
their constituents, and that expressive forums that platforms.
are important to our democracy aren’t transformed ¦

into echo chambers.” Tom McParland of New York Law Journal can be
“While we would have liked the Supreme Court contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on
to leave the Second Circuit’s ruling on the books, Twitter @TMcParlandALM.

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