Posted on August 1st, 2013 | No Comments

Kirkland Attorney Blog

jasonahowie

There are many different areas of legal issues that occur every single day. But, one of the more recent legal issues that is beginning to occur more and more as time passes are legal issues in social media. Social media has been an extremely popular trend that has been growing rapidly for over 10 years. As technology gets more advanced, people gravitate towards it. We live in a world where connecting with people face-to-face is becoming less of an occurrence, while connecting with people online from (possibly) across the world is a normal thing. With the rise of social media comes an entire new field of legal issues that lawyers and users should be thinking about.

Here are the top 4 legal issues that are involved with social media and that you should watch out for:

1. Releasing Confidential Information -It can be easy to make a simple error of releasing certain confidential information to a social network on accident. For example, if you are managing the companies Facebook, and it was linked to yours, you can easily mistake which one you are actually logged in to and post something private onto the businesses network. It sounds small, but these little things can add up to really impact your company in a negative way.
   
2. HR Problems – If you have someone managing your social networks or if you yourself are working for a company and have a personal social network, remember that your customers, employers, and employees can easily see what you’re posting and who else you are connected to with a simple search.
3. Use of Copyright-Protected Items Without Permission – This is a big one. If you post something on a site without getting permission from the owner of whoever took the picture, wrote the article, or made the video you can potentially be in a lot of financial trouble. Always make sure that you are using content that either you have made yourself, or that you have an authority to. Sites such as http://www.stockvault.net, or http://freerangestock.com can give you access to lots of free content.
4. Privacy of Individuals – If you post something that involves a picture or a video of someone that doesn’t want to be online or included in the content, you can be in some legal trouble. Privacy of individuals is extremely important when considering what to post on any of your social networks.

Jensen Legal has a kirkland attorney that is ready to help guide you through any legal bind that you might be in. If you are in the Seattle area and are looking for a lawyer, give our Kirkland attorney a call.