: How many of you have scrolled down your facebook page and
: clicked on things without even reading them fully, just to
: be polite to family or friends??

: Granted, this is in Switzerland but the 'privacy, free-speech'
: laws are closing in all around us.

: ************************************

: By Carey Wedler

: In the United States, a crazed racist is currently facing
: murder charges for stabbing multiple men who attempted to
: stop him from harassing two teenage girls. In a court

: appearance, he justified his murder of two Americans, one a
: military veteran, by citing “free speech.”

: On the other end of the spectrum, in Switzerland, a man was
: just convicted of liking Facebook comments that implied the
: plaintiff was racist, highlighting the potential dangers of
: regulating speech.

: The Guardian reported: Man fined by Swiss court for 'liking'
: defamatory comments on Facebook

:
: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/30/man-fined-swiss-court-liking-defamatory-comments-facebook

: According to a statement from the Zurich district court, the
: 45-year-old defendant accused an animal rights activist,
: Erwin Kessler, of racism and antisemitism and hit the
: ‘like’ button under several comments from third parties
: about Kessler that were deemed inflammatory.

: The comments were made in 2015 during heated discussions on a
: range of Facebook groups about which animal welfare groups
: should be permitted to take part in a vegan street
: festival, the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger reported.

: Kessler was previously convicted under an anti-racism law
: almost twenty years ago and received a short prison
: sentence for “comparing Jewish ritual slaughter methods to
: Nazi practices,” a conviction already questionable in and
: of itself.

: Kessler sued over a dozen Facebook commenters over their 2015
: statements. The unnamed man convicted of liking comments
: was the only defendant found guilty without actually
: posting his own Facebook comments. The court ruled that
: “y clicking the like button, ‘the defendant clearly
: endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own,’” as
: noted by the Guardian.

: The court also determined that the defendant had insulted
: Kessler’s “honor” and, by liking the “unproven” comments,
: exposed their content to large numbers of people. The court
: ruled the defendant failed to prove the allegations were
: true.

: The comment-liking defendant was fined 4,000 Swiss francs
: ($4,129 USD). Amr Abdelaziz, a lawyer for one of the
: defendants, said those convicted can appeal but it’s
: unlikely they will put in the time and resources to do so.

: Though the conviction was made by a lower court, Abdelaziz
: believes it could still have profound implications across
: the country. He said the court needs to clarify whether
: liking Facebook comments “should be given the same weight
: as other forms of speech more commonly cited in defamation
: cases,” the Guardian reported.

: “If the courts want to prosecute people for likes on Facebook,
: we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this
: country,” Abdelaziz said. “This could also obviously easily
: become an assault on the freedom of expression.”