What Does SCOTUS Know About Facebook, Anyway?

The Supreme Court ​is hearing arguments about whether the First Amendment protects threatening Facebook posts of rap lyrics, which sent us here at Motherboard HQ to wondering: even if we charitably imagine that the justices think of rap lyrics are a protected art form, what do the Supreme Court justices know about Facebook anyway?

Whenever it comes to tech, this question arises of what the justices actually know about what they're ruling on.

It hasn't been that long since the Supreme Court heard arguments on Aereo, wherein most of the questions seemed to revolve around ​trying to figure out what the hell Aereo is and seemed to indicate that all but Sonia Sotomayor had no idea.

This isn't some agist bias against a group whose youngest member, Elena Kagan, is in her mid-50s. By their own description, the Supreme Court is behind when it comes to tech. ​Kagan told the AP last year that, "the court hasn't really gotten to email." Instead, she said, they write memos that are printed onto ivory paper "that looks like it came from the 19th century," and have a chambers aide hand deliver the memo.

There's no agist explanation for them using a method that's older than the post office, but in the rarefied chambers that they move in, it's how things are done. And frankly, I'm glad to hear—or at least be able to speculate—that the justices of the highest court in the land are doing more important things than poking each other on Facebook.

But they're also mortals like us, who ​do things like go on vacation and live their lives outside of the court. But much more importantly, the decisions they make have a very real impact on a world they may or may not know anything about.

Obviously this is what law clerks and research are for—if the Supreme Court couldn't competently rule about things that the justices don't experience personally, then American law would have a long legacy of failing people who lack the means to get Ivy-League law degrees and that's…I mean…well…hm.

With that in mind, let's take a break from all of the justice's delightful parody accounts on Twitter and look at the Supreme Court on Facebook!

First off, they're all on there, sort of. All of the justices at least have "Community Pages" that take information from the justices' Wikipedia pages and carry the disclaimer "This Page is automatically generated based on what Facebook users are interested in, and not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with the topic."

That's all that we get for the Supreme Court itself, though that doesn't stop people from scolding into the abyss, mostly over Obamacare, but also fairly often over immigration, and occasionally the Citizens United ruling.

Interpret it how you will, but that's all we get for most of the justices too, including Chief Justice John Roberts, whose reputation as it pertains to tech is still marred by once asking (likely rhetorically) ​what the difference is between email and a pager, as well as Anthony Kennedy, who is liked by 668 people, and Antonin Scalia, who is liked by 3,139 people. As a staunch originalist, I guess I'd expect him to be on Friendster anyway.

The justices who were appointed after the rise of Facebook have a few more "Likes"—Kagan, who was a dean at Harvard when Facebook started, pulled 3,587 likes. The most popular community page, by far, is Sonia Sotomayor's though, with 16,762 likes.

Of course, it makes sense for public figures to keep their personal pages from being searched for, and Facebook doesn't have that little verification checkmark that Twitter does, where Supreme Court parody accounts abound. So maybe they're out there, hiding in the Facebook wilderness, but I couldn't find them.

I did find a parody account on Facebook ​for Stephen G. Breyer, built and abandoned all on a February day. Next to Breyer's profile pic, the cover photo is just a ton of cash in a big but neat stack. I have no idea what sort of commentary is going on here.

Likewise, there's a ​bunch of fake-looking Samuel Alito pages, ​one with nine friends that lists the Twilight series as one of his favorite books and Reggaton as his favorite music, and a couple of pretty fake looking Sotomayors (she was pumped about a Yankees game and also become a Supreme Court justice).

Almost twice as popular is ​this Clarence Thomas account. He has 17 friends and a post encouraging people to buy his book, although one of the pictures on his profile says "Clarence Thomas, YOU Apologize." Some Googling reveals that this probably refers to when Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harrassment during his confirmation hearing in 1991, was asked by Thomas's wife to apologize. At any rate, given Thomas's famous reticence, he's probably the last person I'd expect to be on Facebook.

Naturally, the first person I looked for was Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She has not one, but two pretty convincing Facebook pages, like maybe a grandchild set them up. Her "​About Section" notes that Interested in "Men," and her Relationship Status is "Widowed." Her ​most official looking account gives itself away when it says her favorite quote is "YOLO" though.

Thanks to all the fake-looking profiles, this project takes a lot longer than I hoped. Facebook's search field sucks, and I notice that the Alito, Ginsberg and Thomas pages all have pretty much the same group of friends, people whose little profile pictures I begin to pity.

In summary, Facebook is really fucking tedious to navigate, the Supreme Court cares dick-all about utilizing it for outreach or whatever drives people to Facebook, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg hasn't confirmed my friend request.

So, yeah, hold out hope that up and coming law clerks will explain what Facebook is adequately, and, as Ruth Bader Ginsberg is apparently fond of saying, "YOLO."