In case you missed it, President Donald Trump blocked Stephen King, author of many popular horror and suspense novels turned movies. Amidst all the controversy surrounding President Trump's accused alliance with Russia and their supposed interference with the presidential election, yet another controversy has surfaced. This controversy is not as well known and potentially is not as earth shaking, but the significance can not be ignored.
President Trump, an avid Twitter user, recently blocked a popular horror novelist, Stephen King. King, a strong proponent against President Trump, has let his voice be known via Twitter. Take a look at a couple of his more recent critiques:
The average person would probably be shocked to read something so jarring about their family, but this has become the norm for the Trump family.
President Trump has been dishing out some pretty rude and accusation tweets to anyone and everyone, so King's tweets are not too off the mark. So King was just as surprised as the rest of us when President Trump blocked him.
This begs the question, can President Trump, or any U.S. President for that matter block U.S. Citizens on social media sites? Or maybe even, should the President be able to block U.S. citizens on social media? Or we could take it one step further and ask if the president should have social media profiles at all?
The President of the United States is a representative of the entire nation. He (or She) has an obligation to the public. The President has to be careful and conscious of any information they release to the public or publish on the Internet, be it a personal opinion or top secret government intel. President Trump has not been quite as cautious with his Tweets as he could be.
That being said, if the president puts information and opinions out to the world on the Internet then does he or she still retain the right to block citizens? Should he or she block citizens?
Of course, the president is allowed to have a personal life but is social media included in their private personal life? The basic question we should be asking is: Does the president have the right to withhold public information from a select group of US citizens?
The obvious answer is no.
Once information from a public figure makes information public they should not block select citizens from the information. Sure there is nothing the constitution that says the president can not block users on Twitter (we all know Jefferson would have gladly blocked Hamilton) but there is the sense of injustice behind the action.
The president should not block U.S. Citizens on any form of social media. In my humble opinion, the president should avoid social media as much as they can in general. Just because you can say anything doesn't mean you should.
So President Trump, kindly
On a slightly different note, this crazy situation gave birth to a thread that should have broken the Internet. J.K. Rowling, also an avid Twitter user shares many of the same views about President Trump as King. (Got to love the literary references!)
