The AIIM Blog - Overcoming Information Chaos

5 Questions to Ask about Your Social Media Records as Legal Evidence

Written by John Mancini | Dec 11, 2017 3:00:00 PM

It's an embarrassing question to ask most organizations, but does your social media presence reflect the reality that the responsibility of business documentation doesn’t go away just because the information is on social media?

The reality for most organizations is no. Recent research conducted by Iron Mountain revealed that 76 percent of businesses regard communications by social media as formal business records, but 46 percent have no idea that they carry a legal responsibility for their content through social media channels. And, a third of the businesses surveyed describe their management of social media as “unmanaged and chaotic.”

Content on social media has a set of unusual issues – who actually owns it, who controls rights to access it, and what responsibilities does a company have to how this information is managed? Multiple jurisdictions, overlapping laws, different vendors, as well as complex technical issues all add to slowing the development of social media law. It’s a race where technology seems to be always ahead of the law.

Let’s consider five key eDiscovery questions that you need to ask about your organization’s social media presence.

  1. Can you reproduce social media information in a timely and complete way?

  2. Can you reproduce social media content in context?

  3. Can you demonstrate the integrity and authenticity of social media information?

  4. Do you know who actually owns the information on social media sites?

  5. Are you communicating on public sites or private sites? And do you know the implications of each?

Find out more in my new Tip Sheet -- How can your online social media content be used against you?