The Mail Online has reported that Alan Blue lost his job after he ‘liked’ a posting on Facebook that appeared to encourage violent behaviour towards a manager. Blue’s case centered on a Facebook conversation involving an ex-colleague who had just been dismissed, who said that someone had hit one of the managers with his hard hat. Blue meant to put in “Aye right, u wish” and but hit the “i” button by mistake, so it came up “Aye right, i wish”, a genuine typo, which he did not notice. The conversation went on and one of the guys said “I should’ve just f****d him over the head with a chair” and Blue ticked the “like” box.’ Blue said the comment was ‘just banter’, and regarded the exchanges as a closed conversation. However, Blue was dismissed. A tribunal upheld Blue’s unfair dismissal claim. In the tribunal’s view, there was no objective reason to believe that his performance would in the future be different simply because of his foolish participation in what he had mistakenly believed to be a private online conversation that had become more public. Blue was awarded £32,799.13 in compensation.  

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