The legal issues surrounding social media have been described as a “Wild, Wild West”—uncharted territory with ambiguous and rapidly changing rules. The constant stream of information in the form of status updates, pictures, wall posts, shared links, comments, “tweets” and “likes” raises issues in realms from intellectual property to employment law to e-discovery. For in-house attorneys, the issues are complex, and as social media becomes more engrained in daily life and less frequently written off as a fad, those issues increasingly are front and center on the legal agenda.
Social media issues of interest to in-house counsel can be broken into two major categories: social media as used by businesses and social media as used by individuals. With regard to using social media to build business, clear best practices are beginning to emerge, but that’s only part of the picture. When it comes to issues related to individuals, specifically employees, a developing body of research and case law can offer guidance in several common scenarios.
