The case involved one controversy between animal rights activists which has been going on since 2015. The accused was accused of having shared and liked several posts that defined his colleague in a negative key Erwin Kessler. The latter was described as neo-Nazi with anti-Semitic ideas within groups like "Vegan in Zurich" is "Indyvegan".
Through his "I like it" and his sharesthe accused, according to the Swiss federal court, contributed to the defamation of Kessler. The Zurich court had fined the offender by stating that the actions on social media have been defamatory and the sentence has now been confirmed at the federal level: the federal court verdict that arrived on Thursday.
The federal court believes that approval and sharing of contents may constitute defamation, stressing that "activating both the Like and Share buttons on Facebook can improve visibility and therefore contribute to the dissemination of content considered at risk within the social network".
While the specific case concerns racism and defamation issues, the ruling of the Federal Court has implications for anyone seeking to disseminate content prohibited by Swiss law. Defamation and many forms of racism are crimes in Switzerland, as well as in many other countries: a user who promotes them through the "Like" or "Share" buttons can be held responsible for the dissemination of content at risk.
"It always depends on the meaning of 'likes' and what you want to achieve", said the lawyer Martin Steiger. "Not necessarily the 'Like' corresponds only to the liking towards what the post wants to communicate. It can also mean that you see it in the same way or that it is considered right that someone else shares that content on Facebook".
According to Bloomberg, however, the matter would be more complicated, and the Swiss federal court would have asked the Zurich court that had issued the first sentence on the case to review a part related to the veracity of the claims brought by the defendant. In particular, in 2017 the Zurich Tribunal imposed a fine on Kessler for helping to spread defamatory and anti-Semitic content. In addition, Kessler had already received a conviction for racial discrimination in 1998 (see also Local).