Like Trump, Serbian President Blocks Twitter Critics

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Photo: EPA/Markus Heine

As the US Justice Department prepares to appeal against a federal judge's ruling that Donald Trump may not block Twitter users from following the presidential account on the social network, his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic has continued to block people seen as critical of his administration, stopping them from directly responding to his posts. 

Katarina Tadic, from the Belgrade-based NGO European Policy Centre, is among those who was recently blocked by the Serbian president. 

"Considering that this is not his personal account, but the account of the institution of the president of the state, I feel that I am, as a citizen, discriminated against, probably on the basis of attitudes that are not liked, perhaps not personally by the president, but by someone from his team that runs that [Twitter] profile," Tadic told BIRN. 

Tadic, often quoted by Serbian media and widely seen as an expert in area of EU-Balkan relations, noted that according to the Serbian constitution, the president represents all the country's citizens. 

BIRN has identified two more people who have been blocked from following the Serbian president. 

Among them is BIRN journalist Slobodan Georgiev, who argued that it is a sign that Vucic and his team don't understand communication on social networks.

"They also don't understand the responsibilities of the position which they are in. Furthermore, they don't want to face different opinions in the public arena," Georgiev said. 

The question of presidents can and should block people from their official account was raised after a US district judge ruled on May 23 that blocking Twitter users because of their personal views violates their rights. 

According to a Reuters...

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