Two Richmond, Virginia police officers won the right to post negative comments about their department on Facebook when the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the department could not punish them for their comments. One of their lawyers said, “We need government employees to speak out when the government is in the wrong, and they need to be able to participate in public debate about important social issues.” (Leo Affairs, December 17, 2016, by Frank Green of the Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Department policy prohibited negative comments on department operations and explicitly said that speech was not protected by the First Amendment. The court decision recognized the department’s interests in stemming disruption but said the harm of the expression must be real rather than conjectural. The court held that posting on social media has become an important avenue for sharing information with the community and could lead to constructive debate. (The Washington Post, December 15, 2016, by Eugene Volokh)