A federal judge will make the decision as to whether Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is allowed to block other Twitter users from seeing his account’s tweets.
The decision will be the culmination of a lawsuit brought in 2018 by the ACLU that claims Merrill’s blocking of certain Twitter users violates those users’ free speech rights under the First Amendment. Briefing in the case was recently completed.
In July 2019, President Donald Trump was ordered by a federal court of appeals to stop blocking users from his Twitter account after he lost a similar lawsuit.
One of the reasons the appeals court gave in Trump’s case was that the president regularly used his Twitter account for official government business.
Merrill, in a Thursday phone interview with Yellowhammer News, maintained that he never conducts official state business from his Twitter account.
According to the Associated Press, “The lawsuit filed by blocked Twitter users contends that Merrill is putting a ‘viewpoint-based restriction’ to information about, and interaction with, his public office.”
Merrill did acknowledge occasionally answering questions about state issues from his personal account, but he maintains doing so does not amount to conducting the official duties of his office.
Merrill said he mostly answers questions “to not be rude” and brought up the existence of the official Twitter account for the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office, which does not block anyone.
He drew a real-life analogy in his remarks to Yellowhammer News, “It’s just like … if people come to your home, knock on your door, you have the opportunity to decide if you want to answer the door or not.”
“If they start screaming at you, and you shut the door, that means it’s the end of the conversation. Nobody has the right to come to your home and scream at you on your doorstep,” Merrill added.
The Republican secretary of state has previously called the lawsuit against him “an attempted political hack job.” He emphasized that he gives his cell phone out to anyone who wants to reach him: 334.328.2787.
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.
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