Watch What You Say

By: Serenity Lopez

BLUE BELL, PA--Practically everyone that can access the internet has, or has had,  a Facebook account.  Facebook allows us to connect with long-lost friends, share pictures of a recent vacation and to share ideas with your peers. It also provides a place for people to bully or threaten others, as well as a place to spread one's own racist or discriminatory values to a wide audience.

     Facebook and other social media sites are extremely new and we are still learning how to exercise our First Amendment rights without stepping on someone’s toes.  Beyond a girlfriend getting mad at her boyfriend for posting a picture with another girl and family members fighting because one saw pictures of a dinner they were not invited to, there are serious problems with Facebook and our First Amendment rights.

     In 2010, Anthony Elonis was prosecuted after having posted what were believed to be threats against his wife on Facebook. Elonis’s wife had recently left him and as an aspiring rapper, he took to Facebook for solace and posted rap lyrics that were explicit and violent. His wife saw these posts as direct threats and took them to the police.  Elonis argued that they were meaningless song lyrics, however the court thought otherwise. Elonis was sentenced to 44 months in prison.

     Another case involving Virginia Sheriff Deputy Daniel Ray Carter Jr. showed that simply pressing the “Like” button was another form of exercising his First Amendment right. A group of fellow deputies were not happy with the reigning Sheriff, so they took to Facebook so show their displeasure. They “liked” the Facebook page of Jim Adams, the man running against incumbent Sheriff B.J. Roberts. When Roberts won, he then fired Carter and five others.

     Carter took the case to court saying that it was unjust to fire him and cited his First Amendment rights as his defense. In 2012, the case was rejected becasue the court did not agree that pressing the “Like” button on Facebook was a form speech, thus not covered by the First Amendment.  This ruling was changed the following year. In 2013, the court decided that pressing the “Like” button was in fact covered by the First Amendment because it could be seen as a form of assembly.

     Facebook gives us a great freedom.  We may think that there are no consequences to what we post but we must be careful what we say and know our rights.