Man Fined $4,000 For 'Liking' Defamatory Posts on Facebook (cnn.com)

In what appears to be a first, a court in Switzerland has fined a man the equivalent of over $4,000 just for clicking the "like" button on what a judge said were defamatory Facebook comments. From a report: The court in Zurich found that the man indirectly endorsed and further distributed the comments by using the ubiquitous Facebook "like" button. The man, who was not named in the court's statement, "liked" several posts written by a third party that accused an animal rights activist of antisemitism, racism and fascism. In court, the man was not able to prove that the claims were accurate or could reasonably be held to be true. "The defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own," a statement from the court said. The court fined the man a total of 4,000 Swiss francs ($4,100). He has the right to appeal his sentence. Facebook said the case had "no direct link" to the company, and a spokesperson declined to comment.

Comments

That's a lot of value judgement...

[supernova87a]

... for a court to be putting into a "like" button.

For one thing, does "liking" using the button imply endorsement? Does "like" mean what they think it means? Or was the person's intention? And what if it was inadvertent clicking?

What if the button was called "interesting..." instead?

You would think that a court would restrain itself and hesitate to rule, given so many possibilities of meaning and ambiguities here...

Re:Read the summary

[HalAtWork]

Then the button needs to be called "Endorse and support" and not "Like," so that it is explicit in its meaning to both the user and the viewer