Business Law Assignment

Running head: BUSINESS LAW ASSIGNMENT
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Business Law Assignment
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BUSINESS LAW ASSIGNMENT 2
Business Law Assignment
Introduction
Many of the Americans are familiar with certain parts of the First Amendments, however
still most people cannot outline all of its parts. Most of the people usually are taught abound the
First Amendment in either in eight grade or in high school, but the majority of the students only
stop at that and never look at the constitution thereafter. It is true that many people have the
knowledge about the freedom of religion, speech, and probably assembly, however, most of
them do not right interpretation of the of the amendment. On the other hand, freedom of speech
has a wide definition by the Supreme Court rulings and society. It had been elongated beyond
what was written with our forefathers, but the technology has also advanced. Other than that,
every person must remember that exercising ones rights should not lead to infringement of
another person’s rights. Therefore, this paper intends to address whether an employer has the
right to restrict what an employee might post on social media when he is not at work and when
using his own computer.
First Amendment Guarantee of Freedom of Speech
The past Amendment ofFreedom of Speech is absolute. In the past, the government was
able to constitutionally imprison people whose ideas were contrary or suppressing its agendas.
But after the creation of the First Amendment, such issues have been successfully balanced. The
two ways through which the First Amendment might be interpreted as absolute are: First, the
interpretation of the First Amendment can be in a manner that enables the government to prohibit
freedom of speech. Second, it may be interpreted in such a manner that prohibits some of the
freedom of the speech. In some instances the court have supported the state on the speech made
by private people who spread fake news or those who threaten those who have expressed their

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views. In such situations if the principles of constitution interpretation are well-done, the actions
of those individuals do not constitute the state action, hence, do not call for the First
Amendment. Other than that, in an occasional instance, the court acted in faster, but a vague
way with the state doctrine when it attempted to bring an important private act within the
constitutional regulation. It is evident in the case Marsh v Alabam (1946) where it was held that
the state trespassing statute should hinder religious distribution of materials on the sidewalk of
the town, even if the sidewalk was the portion of a privately owned company town.
Moreover, the other main issue is the use of multimedia to propagate lies that are
intended to deform public conversation has currently risen to level of harm. Even though, it is
easy to say that the government should have the power to punish those who spread false
information through the social media, the Supreme Court has rejected such punishment on the
basis that they are automatically not supported by the First Amendment. The law says that those
who spread intentional false statements through the social media may breach First Amendment
only if it can be shown that such lies caused a significant harm such as defamation, fraud, and
perjury (LomontE, 2014).
Furthermore, there have been mixed judgments in determining whether an employer has
the right to restrict what an employee might post on social media when he is not at work and
when using his personal computer. For example, in the case between Costco Wholesale
Corporation and United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) canceled various sections of the employee manual in Costco’s (PR Newire,
2012). One of the Costco’s employee rules prohibited employees from posting any statement that
would harm reputations of another person, damage reputation of the company, or breach the
company policies. However, on the ruling of this matter, the NLRB panel of three people held