Socially Aware

April 19, 2016 - Litigation
Mixed Messages: Courts Grapple With Emoticons and Emoji
Emoti cons and emoji are ubiquitous in online and mobile communications; according to one study , 74 percent of Americans use emoticons, emoji and similar images on a regular basis. Given their popularity, it comes as no surprise that courts are increasingly being called
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April 15, 2016 - First Amendment, Marketing, Big Data, Litigation
Social Links: A social media marketing fail; Facebook and prisoners, jurors, older people
By: Aaron P. Rubin
We’re trying something new here at Socially Aware : In addition to our usual social-media and tech-law analyses and updates, we’re going to end each work week with a list of links to interesting social media stories around the Web, primarily things that caught
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March 22, 2016 - Digital Content, DMCA, Terms of Use, Marketing, Section 230 Safe Harbor, IP, Litigation
How to Protect Your Company’s Social Media Currency
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Today’s companies compete not only for dollars but also for likes, followers, views, tweets, comments and shares. “Social currency,” as some researchers call it , is becoming increasingly important and companies are investing heavily in building their social media fan bases. In some cases,
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January 14, 2016 - Digital Content, DMCA, Copyright, IP, Litigation
New Court Decision Highlights Potential Headache for Companies Hosting User-Generated Content
By: Anthony M. Ramirez
In this election season, we hear a lot of complaints about laws stifling business innovation. And there is no doubt that some laws have this effect. But what about laws that spur innovation, that result in the creation of revolutionary new business models? Section 512(c)
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January 11, 2016 - E-Discovery, Discovery, Litigation
Go Fish: Do General Discovery Rules Apply to a Litigant’s Facebook Posts?
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
While discovery of social media information has been commonplace for some time, courts are still struggling with when such discovery should be allowed. While courts generally hold that normal discovery rules apply to social media discovery, at least one judge has identified—and railed against—emerging
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December 18, 2015 - Endorsement Guides, Online Reviews, Litigation
Frying Small Potatoes: Will Amazon’s Pursuit of Individual Fake-Review Writers Pay Off?
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Amazon’s customer reviews have long been a go-to resource for consumers researching prospective purchases. Unfortunately, fake customer reviews—product critiques commissioned by merchants and manufacturers in an effort to bolster their own products’ reputations or undermine their competitors’—have been around for almost as long. Now,
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September 30, 2015 - Cyberbullying, Privacy, Ethics, Litigation
Status Updates: Court nixes VPPA claim; lawyer suspended over blog posts; Facebook ‘unfriending’ cited in bullying decision
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Tale of the tape. The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which requires video service providers to destroy personally identifiable information after a specified time, doesn’t provide a private right of action for plaintiffs whose information was retained beyond that period. So held the U.S.
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September 08, 2015 - First Amendment, Litigation
Federal District Court Strikes Down Law That Bans Ballot Selfies
By: Aaron P. Rubin
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire recently struck down on First Amendment grounds a 2014 amendment to New Hampshire Revised Statute 659:35 that made it illegal for New Hampshire voters to post pictures of their completed ballots to social media.
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August 24, 2015 - E-Discovery, Discovery, Litigation
Social Media E-Discovery: Are Your Facebook Posts Discoverable in Civil Litigation?
By: J. Alexander Lawrence
Judge Richard J. Walsh began his opinion in Largent v. Reed with the following question: “What if the people in your life want to use your Facebook posts against you in a civil lawsuit?” With the explosive growth of social media, judges have had
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August 10, 2015 - First Amendment, Online Reviews, Litigation
Washington State Court Refuses to Unmask Anonymous Online Reviewer
By: Aaron P. Rubin
In a precedent-setting ruling, the Washington Court of Appeals in Thomson v. Doe refused to grant a motion to compel brought by a defamation plaintiff who had subpoenaed the lawyer-review site Avvo.com seeking the identity of an anonymous online reviewer, holding that, for a
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