Sometimes you read news that doesn’t really seem like news at all, as if it’s non-news, issues that you weren’t aware even existed in the first place. This was one of them.
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond reversed a lower-court ruling that said ‘liking’ a Facebook page was insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.
The issue came to light in a case involving six people who alleged Hampton Sheriff B.J. Roberts sacked them for supporting an opponent in his 2009 re-election bid, which he won. The employees sued, saying their First Amendment free speech protections were violated.
Sheriff Roberts said some of the workers were let go because he wanted to replace them with sworn deputies while others were fired because of poor performance or his belief that their actions "hindered the harmony and efficiency of the office." One of those workers, Daniel Ray Carter, had "liked" the Facebook page of Sheriff Roberts’ opponent, Jim Adams.
US District Judge Raymond Jackson in Norfolk ruled in April 2012 that while public employees are allowed to speak as citizens on matters of public concern, clicking the ‘like’ button does not amount to expressive speech. In other words, it’s not the same as actually writing out a message and posting it on the site.
Simply clicking a button is much different and does not warrant First Amendment protection, he wrote. In his ruling, he acknowledged the need to weigh whether the employee’s speech was a substantial factor in being fired. But the judge wrote that the point is moot if ‘liking’ something is not constitutionally protected speech.
The three-judge appeals court panel disagreed, ruling that "liking a political candidate’s campaign page communicates the user’s approval of the candidate and supports the campaign by associating the user with it. In this way, it is the internet equivalent of displaying a political sign in one’s front yard, which the Supreme Court has held is substantive speech."
Yes, with the ruling reversed, Facebook ‘likes’ now count as opinions, as thoughts, as actions. I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all, just a moving with the times, but it does point to a strange concept.
I see a ‘like’ as a shrug, a lazy lift of a finger, a mindless click. What does ‘liking’ actually mean nowadays? When Facebook first introduced the feature, you could kind of see the point, but now the ‘like’ button just seems like a…a non thought. An acknowledgement that you’ve read the status, a lazy substitute for thinking, a fashionable tool that shows other friends that you’ve read and understood the deep political message your other more intelligent friend wrote on their Facebook and that in liking you are completely aligned with their philosophical sentiment.
I ‘liked’ a status about Breaking Bad today. I don’t even know why, I’ve never even watched it. I didn’t understand the status, I just liked it. It was there. My finger was over the mouse button.
Perhaps one day all our thoughts will converge into one sentiment…into one response that means everything yet means nothing.
Everything will have a ‘like’ button and you just click it and it means that you’ve done it, and then you don’t have to worry too much about other things because you know you’ve pressed ‘like’ and you know other people will have seen it and that’s just fine. Like, you know, whatever.
