Bicycle...

The image of a woman on a bicycle has caused a lot of buzz recently. Specifically, the woman who was photographed giving the middle finger to Trump’s motorcade while pedaling beside it. 

A BBC article came stating that the woman had been fired from her job because she made this gesture and subsequently posted it on her social media. 

The woman told the Huffington Post that her employers, fired her because they believed the gesture to be “obscene” or “lewd.” 

By posting this photograph she had violated their social media policy.

The First Amendment does not protect certain speech, such as fighting words, or words which “incite an immediate breach of the peace”. That being said, the middle finger does not  “appeal to prurient interest,) nor does it incite direct violence. 

However, the claims of the company which said it violated their social media policy are  within their rights as a private organization. 

There is also a slight conflict of interest, though, when you take into account that Akima LLC is a government contract company. 

Briskman was in charge of Akima’s social media presence. Her job was to promote the company in a good manner. For her own social media to have “obscene” gestures does not exactly set the best example for the company.

However, the problem here is that she voluntarily posted this image and now that it has gone viral she is technically not a private citizen anymore. She signed away some of her rights when she agreed to popularize her name in connection with the photograph.