Ocasio-Cortez Defends Twitter Blocking Amid Free-Speech Suits

NEW YORK — She only blocks the blockheads. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her practice of blocking critics on Twitter Thursday as she faces two lawsuits from aggrieved tweeters.

The star Democratic lawmaker says she only bars users who persistently harass her from viewing or engaging with her posts. She has blocked fewer than 20 accounts, she said, and none of them belong to her constituents in The Bronx and Queens.

"People are free to speak whatever classist, racist, false, misogynistic, bigoted comments they’d like," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter Thursday evening. "They do not have the right to force others to endure their harassment and abuse."

Ocasio-Cortez — who has drawn national attention as a leader of her party's left flank — was responding to criticism from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which urged her in a Wednesday letter to stop blocking Twitter users based on their viewpoints.

The Knight Institute brought the lawsuit that led a federal appeals court to rule that President Donald Trump could not legally block critics from his Twitter account. Two critics of Ocasio-Cortez, former state Assembly Member Dov Hikind and the congressional candidate Joey Saladino, have filed similar suits against her.

Ocasio Cortez's lawyers have argued that she is free to block people from her main @AOC Twitter page, which has 5.2 million followers, because it is a personal, not official, page. But that is not an accurate distinction because she uses the account to explain policy proposals, tell the public about hearings and get public comment about government issues, the Knight Institute says.

"The @AOC account is important to you as a legislator, to your constituents, and to others who seek to understand and influence your legislative decisions and priorities," the First Amendment group wrote.

Ocasio-Cortez maintained that some of the accounts she's blocked have been downright abusive. She pointed to the Daily Caller, a conservative publication that circulated a fake nude photo of her. The website has said it meant to inform readers that the image was not real.

"Harassment is not a viewpoint," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday.

The Knight Institute noted that blocking users who post threatening messages is "reasonable and constitutionally legitimate." The group also acknowledged that women and minorities are especially affected by online abuse and harassment.

"We would welcome the chance to work with you to develop a social media policy that both complies with the First Amendment and helps you address threats, abuse, and harassment," the organization wrote in its letter.

But Ocasio-Cortez's argument did not hold water with Hikind, who said she has not cited any "abusive" tweets as a basis for blocking him.

"Others may have abused her in tweets; I only leveled sharp critique that got lots of attention on her threads and she couldn’t handle it," Hikind said on Twitter. Ocasio-Cortez "has shown herself to act like nothing but a petulant child, coward, and hypocrite."