
Facebook "likes" aren't speech protected by the First Amendment-Bland v. Roberts - protomyth
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/facebook-likes-arent-speech-protected-by-the-first-amendment-bland-v-roberts.ars
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carbocation
Ouch. This is not a good outcome. A Facebook 'like' can be a pretty strong
statement, and it should be protected speech.

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gee_totes
I agree. I also think the district court in this case made a stupid ruling.

Luckily:

a) This ruling only applies to the particular district in Virgina where this
case came up.

b) The district court ruled that the "likes" were not protected speech because
"liking" is not making an _actual statement on the record_ of support (i.e. a
written statement). However, this ruling is inconsistent with previous supreme
court rulings around free speech.

For example, in Tinker v. Des Moines, the supreme court ruled that a group of
students wearing black armbands against the Vietnam was a form of protected
speech even though there was no written or verbal statement involved in the
speech.

In Texas v. Johnson, the supreme court ruled that flag-burning was a form of
protected speech as well.

Since flag-burning and wearing armbands as a form of protest are protected
speech, and both are forms of speech that do not involve written or spoken
proclamations, I have no idea why the district court ruled that "liking" on
Facebook was somehow different.

