Animal Rights Advocates Say NIH Blocks Critical Comments on Social Media

[gorgenzola]

7. The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit disagrees.

In Knight v. Trump, it was ruled that Trump could not block his critics on Twitter, because it is a public forum.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/23/trump-twitter-block-ruling-court-public-forum-account

So did the Supreme Court, unanimously, in Packingham v. North Carolina in 2017:

"A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that
all persons have access to places where they can speak
and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once
more. The Court has sought to protect the right to speak
in this spatial context. A basic rule, for example, is that a
street or a park is a quintessential forum for the exercise
of First Amendment rights. See Ward v. Rock Against
Racism, 491 U. S. 781, 796 (1989). Even in the modern
era, these places are still essential venues for public gath-
erings to celebrate some views, to protest others, or simply
to learn and inquire.
While in the past there may have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense)
for the exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is
cyberspace—the “vast democratic forums of the Internet”
in general, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521
U. S. 844, 868 (1997), and social media in particular."