The plaintiffs, Philip N. Cohen, Eugene Gu, Holly Figueroa O'Reilly, Nicholas Pappas, Joseph M. Papp, Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, and Brandon Neely, were a group of Twitter users blocked by then-U.S. President Donald Trump's personal @realDonaldTrump account.

The lawsuit also named as defendants White House press secretary Sean Spicer and social media director Dan Scavino.

However, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision because, pursuant to established precedent on the mootness doctrine, the appeals process could not conclude before the swearing in of Joe Biden as President.

In addition, the reasoning of Knight was abrogated by later Supreme Court decisions, particularly Lindke v. Freed, which applied a narrower, two-pronged "actual and purported exercise of authority" test.

[10][11] Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had filed a similar lawsuit in the District of Columbia, alleging violations of the Presidential Records Act for deleting tweets.

[21] Also in August, the Knight First Amendment Institute sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting that the President comply with the Judge's ruling and unblock a list of 41 additional Twitter users, including Danny Zuker, MoveOn activist Jordan Uhl, health care activist Laura Packard, and journalists like Alex Kotch and Jules Suzdaltsev.

[31] The Knight Institute responded by arguing that the Second Circuit ruling should remain, claiming "The case is moot because President Trump's repeated violation of Twitter's terms of service led that company to shut down his account and to ban him permanently from its platform.

[33][34] Justice Clarence Thomas issued a 12-page concurring opinion, arguing that Twitter and similar companies could face some First Amendment restrictions even though they are not government agencies.

Thomas suggested that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act had perhaps been construed too broadly, and that Twitter, Facebook, et al., should be regulated as common carriers.

[39] In response to critics who questioned whether Twitter should have been considered a public forum, Knight Institute senior attorney Katie Fallow cited a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Packingham v. North Carolina, in which Justice Anthony Kennedy described social media as "the modern public square" and as one of the most important places for the exchange of views.

That ruling, which was unanimous, struck down a North Carolina law that prohibited registered sex offenders from accessing social media sites.