Social media is no longer just for entertainment. It is an important source of information for many purposes. Creditors and potential employers are starting to rely on information found in social media to determine reliability and honesty. But few industries are using it as much as in legal cases. It can often yield the most important evidence. This information came to us from the Canadian Lawyer in their article, “Social media e-discovery: its time is here.“
Social media are prevalent with many people using social media as their dominant communications channel, preferring some in-app messaging tools to e-mail. Corporations, too, are using this same media to target and communicate with their customers. So it makes sense to pay attention to these sources when building a case and/or defense.
Social media is discoverable and producible if relevant, not only because courts have understood that the point of social media is the erosion of privacy, but also because courts have largely adopted the view that privacy will not trump discoverability of evidence as long as there isn’t an impact on third-party interests.
Like any records management systems, social media is searchable with the right tools. We know that indexing against a strong, standards-based taxonomy can ensure comprehensive search results. Access Innovations is one of a very small number of companies able to help its clients generate ISO/ANSI/NISO compliant taxonomies to produce comprehensive results.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
