In the Eastern District of Virginia an astonishing case surfaced where the controversy started due to Facebook’s “Like” button. In this case of Bland v. Roberts (accessible at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/91406670/Bland-v-Roberts-4-11cv45-E-D-Va-Apr-24-2012), B.J.Roberts was the Sheriff who stood for re-election. It is contended by the plaintiffs that the Sheriff (defendant) removed the plaintiffs after winning the election for supporting his opponent.

The plaintiffs had allegedly hit “like” on Facebook page of Sheriff’s opponent. The bone of contention of this case was that the “like” button is a form of speech and expression and hence it is protected under the first amendment. The district court held that “like” on Facebook is not protected by the first amendment (First amendment can be accessed at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment/). Therefore, the plaintiffs were not granted relief on this matter.

After this judgment, the action of liking a page is not protected under the constitution. What is still unclear is that how right to silence is protected under the same law, hoisting flag is also considered an expression of speech but an expression by mere click of a button has been denied the protection vehemently.

Debbei Rosenbaum, attorney with Morrison Foerster said that “It would be interesting to see how courts delve this issue and will it be sufficient to withhold the first amendment doctrince in the world of social media or the new media”. This comment was only after American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Facebook decided to go ahead and join this matter a Amicus curie or friend(s) of the court. (ACLU brief on this matter can be accessed at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/bland_v._roberts_appeal_-__amicus_brief_.pdf).

One of the arguments in the ACLU brief for providing protection to the plaintiffs in this case is that the statements on Facebook involved matters of immense public concern. The comments were related to the merits of a candidate for political office. As per ACLU brief it said “Far from expressing personal grievances, plaintiffs were voicing their opinions about the virtues – or lack thereof – of an elected official. That some of the comments were made privately, rather than to a public audience, is irrelevant to the public concern analysis.”

Kleev, an occasional blogger says that “when we log- on we never think about these intricacies brought forward by such cases”.  This case has definitely generated interest in an issue which was almost a non-issue before this incident.