Facebook 'Like' protected by First Amendment

A while back, the case Bland vs. Roberts, the court of appeals ruled in favor of Bobby Bland, a former deputy sheriff from Hampton, Va., who was just one of many other employees who were fired for ‘liking’ the Facebook page of his former boss’s electoral opponent. After their boss, sheriff B.J. Roberts, won his race he then fired Mr. Bland and five other employees. He said the firings were the result of "budget cuts" and "the workers’ disruption of office dynamics." Under First Amendment Law, individuals are protected from retaliation of a public official.  Bland and his other employees took the case to court suspicious of their termination.

           The reason why this case was so monumental in the world of Free Speech is mainly because, now, the First Amendment is now recognizing that speech is protected in both the physical world and now a simple key stroke. Understandably, the First Amendment’s ruling on Free Speech extends to the Internet, which unfortunately our forefathers failed to project far enough into the future and left the Constitution rather hazy when applied to the ever-expanding cyberspace. What would be easily comprehended would be cases that involved an exchange of words (Greshamn vs City of Atlanta) rather than a simple stroke of a key. But what is being argued is that, in "liking" a page, the individual is physically acknowledging that they are supporting and now representing all things that the page they “liked” stands for. 

           

          As Chief Judge William B. TraxlorJr. stated, “”On the most basic level, clicking on the ‘Like’ button literally causes to be published the statement that the user ‘likes’ something, which is itself a substantive statement.” Judge Traxlor proposed that although the individual was not saying they literally "liked" the page out loud, they were still saying something by 'liking' the page. What is to be determined is the ever-changing world of social media. With this in mind, could everything from sending a 'thumbs up' to a 'smiling' or 'frowning' emoji be grounds for true interpretation in future cases?