Can employers or university administrators legally prosecute me for material that appears in my Facebook profile?
The answer to that question depends on what that material is! But first off, “prosecution” is a term usually reserved for criminal law, and only the state is allowed to engage in those kinds of legal actions. A narrow type of language might, under extreme circumstances―such as where it were used to incite imminent violence, and where it were therefore likely to be coupled with illegal activities―fall outside of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. But, on the whole, it would be a rare event indeed for anyone to be prosecuted for speech alone. Leaving prosecution aside, then, whether employers could sue you in civil court for statements you made about them is an entirely different matter. If you libel a company or institution, legal action is an option for it, if it claims you have made false statements that have injured it. So, for example, if you said that Company X secretly practices satanic rituals―or even said something less outrageous such as claiming that a law firm is a
