Swiss court fined man for defamatory Facebook likes

A district court in northern Switzerland's Zurich on Monday gave a Swiss man a suspended sentence and a 4,000 CHF (4,000 U.S. dollars) fine in a defamation case which involved him "liking" on Facebook posts, local media reported on Tuesday.

The 45-year-old defendant was found guilty of defamation for his liking posted on Facebook that accused an animal rights activist of racism and anti-Semitism, the Swissinfo reported.

The comments in question suggested that Erwin Kessler, the president of the animal protection organisation "Verein gegen Tierfabrikenexternal link", holds racist and anti-Semitic views. The defendant (who wasn't named in the court documents) clicked "like" on some of the comments and linked to some of the posts.

The defendant, still having the right to appeal the decision to Zurich's cantonal court, had also liked six Facebook posts from other people that contained the inflammatory content, the report said.

The report cited the court as saying that the inflammatory Facebook posts were "unjustifiable".

"According to Judge Catherine Gerwig, such defamatory statements on the social media network violated Kessler's honour. By clicking on a Facebook "Like" button, the defendant was endorsing the defamatory content and making it his own," the report said. A lawyer for one of the other people sued by Mr Kessler said the ruling could "have a large impact" despite being from a regional court.

The act of "liking" content on Facebook spreads it more widely across the site and makes it available to a greater number of people, the court was cited as saying.

The court added that the defendant could not prove that the offending statements about Kessler and his organization were true or that he had good reason to believe them to be true.

Defamation law as it applies to social networks is a grey area in a lot of countries, including the United States, although the U.S. constitution provides a lot more protection for an individual's freedom of speech than some other jurisdictions. 

The Swiss case, however, appears to be the first in which a man has been found guilty of defamation just for clicking the "like" button on someone else's comments on Facebook.