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Is 'Liking' on Facebook Free Speech?

Photo Credit DenisDervisevic, Via Flickr Creative Commons

A sheriff’s office employee in Hampton Virginia alleges that in 2009 he was professionally de-friended after “liking” the Facebook page of his boss’s political opponent.  But in a wrongful termination suit that concluded earlier this year, a judge ruled the other way…saying that “merely ‘liking’ a Facebook is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection.”  Ken Paulson is President and CEO of the First AmendmentCenter, former editor-in-chief at USA Today, and author of a recent op-ed arguing that Judge Jackson’s decision was misguided, and won’t likely withstand judicial review.

 

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