Facebook Likes Not Covered by First Amendment, Judge Rules

The weird way technology is shaping (or in some ways, chipping away at) our rights showed a new twist this week, when a judge ruled that Facebook likes are not constitutionally protected speech.

Under the First Amendment to the Constitution, Americans enjoy certain protections for freedom of speech- that is to say, you can say President Obama has big ears or John Boehner is an orange crying jackass, and technically, no jackbooted thugs can drag you out of your house and chuck you in a holding cell somewhere indefinitely. Technically.

(I mean, there was that one guy that got swept up in a raid and almost died in a jail cell last week, and then the whole anti-protest law thing, and the de facto imprisonment of Occupy protesters reported now and then during last year’s demonstrations. But other than that.) So while you can’t really be sanctioned for your speech even presumably on venues like Facebook, your Facebook “likes” are a totally different judicial ball of wax, it would seem.

A new ruling pertaining to four fired employees of a sheriff who believed the termination of their employment came because they’d “liked” an opponent’s Facebook page back in 2009. They sued, and in an opinion, US District Judge Raymond Jackson said that it was “the Court’s conclusion that merely “liking” a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.”

Jackson said that had the employees made a statement in words, such as a status update, it would be different- but explained:

“No such statements exist in this case. Simply liking a Facebook page is insufficient. It is not the kind of substantive statement that has previously warranted constitutional protection. The Court will not attempt to infer the actual content of Carter’s posts from one click of a button on Adams’ Facebook page.”

University of Michigan law professor Don Herzog spoke to the AP, and surmised that the ruling opens to the door for the government to begin assessing issues of free speech by how frivolous the speech may be:

“It is for sure a thin statement, but it is clearly within what we do all the time as democratic citizens… This is one of the ways we talk about politics in our society.”

Jackson noted that previous cases pertaining to free speech on Facebook dealt with direct statements, and not the vaguer action of “liking” anything.