The whole point of social media is for people to socialize and interact with one another. Social media is invariably password protected, and has various privacy settings that restrict access to account postings. People may send private and personal emails to their friends and family via their social media account, and use their social media account like an Internet service provider. Depending on the privacy setting used, the “friends” of the subscriber are listed on the public “page” of the account.
When a party seeks an authorization to obtain social media records, it seeks the private emails and records of these nonparty “friends.” Most of the decisions discussing discovery of social media have not addressed the rights of nonparties, including notice to them of the application for their records, the right of nonparties to object to the disclosure, and consideration of potential embarrassment or annoyance such disclosure might cause them.
