President Donald Trump's practice of blocking his critics on Twitter is unconstitutional and in violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

Trump's personal Twitter account @realDonaldTrump is a "public forum," where debate should be permitted, New York District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald wrote in her ruling.

"While we must recognize, and are sensitive to, the President's personal First Amendment rights, he cannot exercise those rights in a way that infringes the corresponding First Amendment rights of those who have criticized him," she added.

The ruling represents a win for the Knight First Amendment Institute, which sued the president last year on behalf of several US residents who were blocked by Trump's account. By blocking them, the president can prevent the affected accounts from viewing, responding, or reacting to his tweets.

The judge refrained from ordering the Trump to unblock his critics over the social media platform; her ruling simply presumes Trump and his staff will follow the law.

"We hope that the White House will simply implement the court's order," Knight First Amendment Institute spokeswoman Ujala Sehgal said. But if the White House ignores the order or tries to appeal it, the Institute will take further legal action, including seeking a court injunction, she added.

According to Reuters, the US Justice Department disagrees with today's ruling and is considering ways to respond.

They could just mute accounts instead of blocking, the judge pointed out. "Muting equally vindicates the President's right to ignore certain speakers and to selectively amplify the voices of certain others but—unlike blocking—does so without restricting the right of the ignored to speak."

The ruling has implications for all public officials on social media. "The First Amendment prohibits government officials from suppressing speech on the basis of viewpoint," Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at the Institute, said in a statement. "The court's application of that principle here should guide all of the public officials who are communicating with their constituents through social media."

Whether Twitter will take action and remove the blocking option from accounts registered to public officials isn't clear. The company declined to comment.