Florida\u2019s Supreme Court has ruled on something that most social media users already know: Facebook friendships are not real.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the court said\u00a0in a Nov. 15 opinion<\/a>\u00a0that a Facebook friendship between a judge and an attorney does not mean the judge is too biased to preside over that attorney\u2019s case.<\/p>\n Ruling on an appeal in a case where one side argued a trial court judge should be disqualified because of a Facebook friendship, the court added that even traditional, IRL friendship wouldn\u2019t necessarily be disqualifying, because the nature of friendship is \u201cindeterminate.\u201d<\/p>\n The ruling includes some philosophical musings on the meaning of friendship. For chief justice Charles Canady, who writes for the majority, a real friend, \u201cis a person attached to another person by feelings of affection or esteem.\u201d Meanwhile, a Facebook friend is a \u201cperson digitally connected to another person by virtue of their Facebook \u2018friendship.’\u201d And a Facebook friendship, he says, \u201cdoes not objectively signal the existence of the affection and esteem involved in a traditional \u2018friendship.’\u201d<\/p>\n Citing previous courts\u2019 rulings, the justice pointed out that you can have thousands of Facebook friends. Users also often can\u2019t recall every single person they\u2019ve ever friended. What\u2019s more, Facebook friends are often selected based on the platform\u2019s algorithmic suggestions, and not personal interactions. In an inadvertent burn to Facebook\u2019s mission of connecting people and building community, the justice writes:<\/p>\n Today it is commonly understood that Facebook \u201cfriendship\u201d exists on an even broader spectrum than traditional \u201cfriendship.\u201d Traditional \u201cfriendship\u201d varies in degree from greatest intimacy to casual acquaintance; Facebook \u201cfriendship\u201d varies in degree from greatest intimacy to \u201cvirtual stranger\u201d or \u201ccomplete stranger.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Source:\u00a0qz.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"