Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Dov Hikind Sues Ocasio-Cortez For Blocking Him On Twitter

(JTA) — Dov Hikind, the former Democratic New York Assemblyman, filed a lawsuit against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for blocking him on Twitter because he holds opposing viewpoints.

Hikind filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. on Tuesday, hours after a federal appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump was violating the Constitution by blocking people from following him on Twitter because they criticized or mocked him.

Hikind told the New York Times that Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blocked him from her personal Twitter account on July 8, after he criticized her for calling U.S. migrant detention centers “concentration camps.

She has some 4.7 million followers on her @AOC account, where she discusses policy and her proposals. Her official congressional account, @RepAOC, has 172,000 followers.

“It’s very clear based on the court’s ruling that A.O.C. is violating my constitutional rights to free speech by excluding me,” Hikind told the Times. “She doesn’t want me to be a part of the discussion and conversation.”

“Ocasio-Cortez is acting cowardly and should be ashamed of her attempts to silence me. I’ve done nothing but address her ignorance and disregard for the truth. She constantly brags about the millions of followers she has but is afraid of my speech. She is a hypocrite,” he said in a statement when he filed the lawsuit.

She reportedly has blocked journalists and critics.

A second lawsuit  was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan by Joseph Saladino, a YouTube personality called “Joey Salads” who is running for Congress representing Brooklyn and Staten Island.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.