S1 E1: What is Twitter?

What is Twitter (or any social media platform) as a matter of First Amendment law? In the first of five episodes, host Evelyn Douek begins to crack open this question, starting with perhaps the most famous Twitter handle of all — @realdonaldtrump. As president, Trump used his account to hire and fire government officials, butt heads with North Korea, and block his critics, a practice that one group of lawyers started to question.

Guests Jameel Jaffer and Katie Fallow — executive director and senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute, respectively — discuss the Knight Institute’s landmark case –Knight v. Trump – establishing that the First Amendment bars public officials from blocking critics from their social media accounts. They are joined by some of the plaintiffs from that lawsuit—comedy writer Nick Jack Pappas, chocolatier and political consultant Holly Figueroa O’Reilly, and sociologist Philip Cohen, who recount their experiences of being blocked (and then unblocked) by Trump.

This episode contains strong language.

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