Be careful when you click the "Like" button in Facebook. Worst-case, you are getting fired.
One Sheriff who participated at a reelection fired his six employees who clicked "Like" button in his rival candidate's Facebook page in a 2009 election. Then, these six fired people filed a law suit as it infringes the U.S. constitution that guaranteed free- speech. However, the U.S. district court judged that this firing was not illegal, as clicking the "Like" was not enough to protect free-speech in the First Amendment of the Constitution.(Simply put, it doesn't "involve actual statements)
American Civil Liberties Union appealed last week that clicking "Like" button is the same meaning of raising placards at political rallies and it's one of the free-speech that guaranteed by Federal Constitution.
I think it's almost a rebellion that these six people did, but it's the end of the world that people are fired by only clicking "Like" in Facebook, isn't it?
Also, there were other incidents in Japan recently that some companies checked student's SNS who applied to enter the company to see if these students have problems or not. In addition, one soccer player clicked the play button to watch an adult video and this action recognized as clicking "Like" in Facebook automatically, which made him feel really ashamed. I think media reported only negative side of SNS recently.
The internet allows us to express our opinions to all over the world without using mass media easily and to hold social activism like the Arab Spring and Ajisai-revolution (Hydrangea- revolution) in Japan. However, it requires people who transmit information to have a responsibility at the same time. It means there is responsibility even in a private blog and personal tweets, but these are one of personal speech, so it's not allowed to control in democratic point of view. Of course, it should guarantee freedom of speech.
Therefore, I think clicking "Like" button is one of the personal speech and it should guarantee freedom of speech. So, firing by clicking "Like" is breaking human light.
I think the law and real world are world apart.
In conclusion, I think Facebook is really convenient and fun to use, but there is no privacy and once personal information leaks, it's impossible to recover forever and expand in a moment. So we should use Facebook more carefully compared to living in the actual world. It's about time to rethink our mind-set.
Written in Aug 15 2012
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