False Friends: The Ethical Limits of Discovery via Social Media
As more people of every demographic become regular users of social media services, evidence arising out of social media postings is playing a much greater role in litigation. Plaintiffs in personal injury cases are being presented with Facebook photos showing them doing activities they claim their injuries made impossible, location-tagged tweets may establish (or destroy) alibis, and blog posts may breach confidentiality or provide case-critical facts.
Jonathan I. Ezor, of counsel to Olshan, in his Law Technology News article, examines the risks involved when attorneys seeking information or evidence decide to go beyond publicly available social media posts.