The US Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia ruled Wednesday that showing support for a candidate in an election by ‘liking’ them on Facebook is a form of free speech protected under the First Amendment.
The case began in 2009, when Sheriff B.J. Roberts fired his deputy sheriff Daniel Ray Carter Jr. and five other employees over liking his rival’s Facebook page, CNN writes. The initial ruling was that a Facebook like was an insufficient statement to warrant constitutional protection.
Carter appealed the ruling shortly afterwards. According to Bloomberg, the appeals court reversed the decision of the judge in the 2009 trial, with US Circuit Judge William Traxler comparing the action of liking a candidate’s Facebook page to “displaying a political sign in one’s front yard,” in that it associates the user with and shows their support for a certain candidate, thus making a Facebook like a sufficient enough statement to merit constitutional protection.
Facebook, during the appeals process, had made clear just how important the “Like” feature was to the 500 million people who use it each day in various ways. Needless to say, the organization was “pleased with the court’s ruling.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Krejci, Wikimedia Commons.