A court in Switzerland fined a man $4,100 this week for endorsing “unseemly content” on the social media platform Facebook.
Court documents released Tuesday out of Zurich establish a new precedent for Swiss citizens logged into Facebook. A 45-year-old defendant, unnamed in the court’s statement, was sanctioned for hitting the “like” button in response to comments made about animal rights activist Erwin Kessler.
“The defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own,” a statement from the court said, Agence France-Presse reported.
The “like” infractions were said to have occurred between between July and September 2015 after individuals accused Mr. Kessler of racism and anti-Semitism.
Amr Abdelaziz, a lawyer for one of multiple people sued by Mr. Kessler, said the ruling will be likely have a chilling effect on free speech.
“If the courts want to prosecute people for likes on Facebook, we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this country,” he said, AFP reported. “This could also obviously easily become an assault on the freedom of expression.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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