Court Ruling Says Liking Something on Facebook Not Free Speech, Therefore You Can Totally Be Fired For It

Erm, think it should be “six employees” not “sex employees” (unless TMS is being written in Latin now which would actually be kinda awesome).

/facepalm Fixed.

 Still there…

Yeah, it’s still there. Not gonna lie, I giggled. 

They did something that was essentially giving the finger to their bosses.  No wonder they were fired.

 Heh, still there… Where was your your mind at? :P

 Considering his response is it any wonder?  A gracious winner he is obviously not.

This is ridiculous. Of course liking something is free speech. Clicking like is another way of saying you support X person/statement/group; and that is surely speech.

 Uh, no. That’s not how either employment OR elections work. This was a petty dick move by someone who is a self-evidently petty dick.

Holy crap this is terrible.
Reflexively I would ask for more details. I’m not sure how Sheriff’s are elected…anywhere frankly, but if it is in fact an elected position then one should be able to express one’s opinion either way right? Also, were the ‘likes’ posted before or after the election?

But really none of that matters. By saying you like something, you are freely expressing your opinion of whatever it is. That IS free speech. The precident from this can’t be that we can no longer express whether we like or dislike something. Having an opinion is not a crime and is in no way slanderous. Does the current Sheriff have a FB page and do those who ‘like’ it get raises as a result?

Yeah, APPEAL. The paranoia HAS to stop.

They asserted a political position in a re-election.  Whether or not their boss liked it, they had every right to support whomever they thought was the best candidate.

How is asserting a political position on facebook NOT protected speech? Tut tut. I look forward to the appeals…

slippery slope, guys.  i used to live in a college town, and every year there was an infamous block party that would inevitably get out of hand.  this year, the local government decided to increase permits costs and tickets fines to keep control or whatever.  for instance, if you “encouraged or promoted the block party” you could be fined anywhere from $500-$750. 

they considered liking the block party’s facebook page encouragement and promotion.  wtf?

The concept that there exists speech that is not significant enough to avoid censorship is completely ludicrous to me.

What if I work for a company that supports Romney and I support Obama on my personal Facebook page? Can I be fired? This is America- you can’t be punished for supporting an elected official who is clearly a jerk. How about, instead of firing people who didn’t support your re-election you spend every, single day proving to them WHY they should have voted for you. 

Would wearing a political pin to work be considered freedom of expression? Because then so should this

This is an elected official though, not a party page. I agree, that’s obnoxious and I certainly would have been fined for liking a Quadfest page as a student. But we’ve got the right to vote for whomever we want without repercussions. Staying in touch with your official is critical during an election period. Knowing that a frat is throwing down at 9 AM on Saturday morning is not. 

It’s a bit pedantic, but people “pore” over things, not “pour” over them.

As for the case itself, only _one_ of the six workers “liked” the opposing candidate’s Facebook page.  A second plaintiff claimed to have made “some statement at some time” but was wholly unable to produce any evidence to substantiate the claim.  The claims made by the other four plaintiffs have nothing whatsoever to do with Facebook posts.

That said, I might be worried about the judge’s commentary regarding Facebook posts if this weren’t merely a memorandum opinion.  Memorandum opinions do not create any precedent, not even merely persuasive precedent.  Based on actually reading the memorandum ( http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/05/02/Sheriff.pdf ) it seems likely that the plaintiffs were unable to produce any substantive evidence linking their activities to their firings and the judge, knowing that the memorandum opinion could not create any precedent, got a little sloppy in his wording. 

The full memorandum goes on to explain how, even if the Facebook “like” were protected speech, the firings would still be permissible:  “…even if the Sheriff fired the Plaintiffs for political reasons, there is a multitude of Fourth Circuit case law which may have justified his decision regarding sworn deputies and other officers who represented him to the public or had access to confidential information.” Memorandum Opinion at page 15.

So…a “like” on facebook is significant enough to be grounds for termination but not significant enough to be protected as free speech?

 true.  my point was only to illustrate another instance where people are, or could potentially be, punished for “liking” something on facebook.  i think thats wrong, and “liking” should be protected under free speech.

also, it is very important to be involved with your local government, or at least stay abreast of current events in your area.  the community was pretty outraged about that “liking” fine, and that part didn’t make it into law after all was said and done.  you can make a difference…even if its for a stupid frat party.

what Jean replied I didn’t even know that anybody able to profit $4205 in 4 weeks on the computer. have you seen this site ===>> http://seekwork2home.blogspot.com/

And if he weren’t an elected official and they weren’t municipal employees, he might be able to get away with that, sure! But since he is, and since the six employees fired do not appear to hold positions which allow them to make policy decisions, what he did was illegal. If he didn’t know that, he should have.

This is not something about which there’s a whole lot of legal argument, to the best of my understanding – the issue in this sort of case is usually the definition of the words “policy decision.” “Is the guy who puts down salt when it snows a policymaker because he decides which side of the road to do first?” That sort of thing.

The judge, incidentally, does not seem to have actually disputed this, which is why this untenable argument about the nature of protected speech turned up in the first place.

One thing that seems to be missed here is that the term “like” is somewhat of a misnomer. Facebook wanted to differentiate themselves from Twitter, so it became “like” instead of “follow”.  I “like” a number of politicians that I actually hate, just so I can see what the crazies are talking about…

Your argument is very persuasive. Consider me swayed.

The like was a ‘substantive’ enough statement for their employer to decide to fire them…

Definite dick move on the bosses part http://dkmvs.com/posts/1777-another-vindictive-boss-dick-move-hope. Why can’t everyone be good to one another? <3 Moby

Unfortunately for this supposed US official… it IS free speech.

Facebook is owned and operated in the United States, most notably, California. It is a business, which has no rules against regular, non-hateful speech.

Unfortunately, any judge who would entertain the idea of it NOT being free speech, is subject to a lawsuit themselves.

I have been given the “we check your Facebook” speech before by employers. I have told them all the same thing; My page is set to private and only friends can see it. If you fire me over something I say on there, it means you are getting information from someone I know, or they are letting you see my page through their account. THAT is an invasion of privacy, and it will result in either a lawsuit or someone ending up in the hospital.

Needless to say, never had an actual problem.

You’re talking about a totally different thing. They worked for the candidate they decided not to support. If you WORKED for Romney and then publicly SUPPORTED Obama then yes you could be fired. Working for a company that supports a candidate is different then working for the candidate himself. Think of it this way, if you decided not to support your boss don’t you think he would fire you?

 No they didn’t, they worked for the Sherriff’s office, not his campaign, it clearly says in the article three civilians, and three deputies.

It’s “pore over,” not “pour over.”  

 Anything said on Facebook isn’t protected by free speech unless it’s in a public area or ran by the government. It’s neither. It’s a website setup by a private company. The same rights given to the owners of facebook to keep their private playground free from whatever they want is basically given to everyone else to use that information against you.

Look at it this way. Say you were a company employee in a public park, and you said, “I hate cupcakes.” That would be protected speech. However, if you went into the office of the president who runs the company you work for, and told him, “I hate cupcakes,” that would NOT be protected speech. You’re doing it on private property. And depending on how much that guy liked cupcakes, he would be well within his rights to fire you. These same exact rules apply to most of the internet at large, not just Facebook.

This has been a simplification of course, and different variables can apply, but this is how free speech in the US works. And it’s how it’s always worked on the internet. Unless you were guaranteed free speech by the site owners, or it’s a forum ran by the US government, there isn’t anyplace you can post your opinion without reprisals.  And until there’s an amendment made to our constitution to allow for things such as the internet, this likely will not change. It’s frankly not in the best interest of the companies that actually hold control over the internet to do so.

Uhm….you’re right that the protection of speech only applies to restrictions from state actors, but you’re wrong that anything said on facebook isn’t protected speech.  

Political expression is the paradigm of protected speech.  The first amendment protects against government taking actions to stifle protected speech – regardless of whether the speech occurs in a house or on the street.

Let’s walk this back to a constitutional originalist standpoint.  Coffeehouses were hotbeds of political discussion in the late 18th century, and they were private establishments. By your logic nothing said in a coffee house is protected speech, and therefore a state actor (gov. official) could use their office to punish statements they didn’t like that were made in the coffee house.  No.  No sense is made.  That’s exactly the kind of thing the 1st amendment was written to prevent.

You cannot sue a judge because you didn’t agree with his/her ruling. You can appeal the ruling, which these people will probably do.

Fuckian…I mean Freudian slip by the author.

What about supporting an opposing candidate through political contributions? I work for a state government organization and I know they check all employees to see who’s contributed to each party. Can we be now fired for supporting a candidate knowing this will be reported and on-line?

If I worked for Romney’s campaign but openly supported Obama, then yes, I could understand the firing. But these gentlemen didn’t work for the campaign, they worked for the Sheriff’s office. They didn’t support their boss, which in any other atmosphere could result in a solid firing. However, we have free elections in the US and I will vote for whoever I damn well please.