3 hours ago
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Mam’s the word.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chief mouthpiece Joe Calvello is blocking X users from commenting on his posts – a move outraged advocates called a clear First Amendment violation.
The bearded lefty press secretary frequently uses his X account for his official job duties, including to inform New Yorkers about the recent snow day and preparations for the winter storm.
But by restricting comments only to followers and accounts mentioned, Calvello is selectively determining who has access to information, said Norman Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and a longtime First Amendment advocate.
“This is a serious infringement of the First Amendment on information the government is receiving,” Siegel said.
“I would call on the mayor to rethink this policy. It sends a bad message on transparency.”
The Supreme Court recently called social media posts such as Facebook comments and X retweets “the modern public square” where constituents can can “petition their elected representatives and otherwise engage with them in a direct manner,” the NYCLU’s website notes.
“If a public official uses their account to carry out their role as an elected official, then their page or account is subject to the First Amendment,” the NYCLU guidance states.
“That means they cannot engage in most forms of censorship such as blocking someone or deleting someone’s comments just because of their subject or opinion.”
NYCLU representatives declined to weigh in on Calvello’s arguable censorship, but noted that government spokespeople are beholden to First Amendment requirements when they have the authority to speak on behalf of that government.
Calvello gave a thin rationale for his X practices, despite a deep-dish background as an alumnus of deeply unpopular Chicago Mayor Johnson’s administration.
“Long before I joined Mayor Mamdani’s administration, I limited comments on my posts to only mutuals because this platform has become a cesspool,” he said.
He didn’t respond to a follow-up asking if he’d continue the practice.
Beyond freedom of speech concerns, insiders argued Calvello simultaneously undercut Mamdani’s claims of transforming politics and showed the lefty’s administration needed to get over their sensitivities if they were to govern rough-and-tumble New York.
“Selectively silencing the public may work in the Chicago mayor’s office, but it ain’t gonna work in NYC,” said political operative Ken Frydman.
Former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, who ran against Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary, said the situation reeked of “old-school 101 politics.”
“If you’re going to dish it, you’ve got to take it,” he said. “If you’re not going to acknowledge and filter out New Yorkers’ opinions, that’s old school.”
The censorious comment custom also struck critics as a case of progressive “free speech for me, but not for thee” hypocrisy — similar to a 2019 kerfuffle by Mamdani’s outspoken fellow Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Former Brooklyn state Assemblyman Dov Hikind sued Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 for blocking him on the platform formerly known as Twitter, forcing her to issue a public apology as part of a settlement that avoided her having to testify in federal court.
“The people on the left, they’re full of s–t,” Hikind told The Post on Monday. “They decide what you should hear and not hear. What are you afraid of, why are you hiding things?”
But conservatives also aren’t immune to being touchy and too-eager to block critics and trolls online.
During President Trump’s first term, federal judges ruled that his practice of blocking critics on Twitter ran afoul of the First Amendment.
English (US)