January 2018

In December of 2017, a UK inmate was freed after years in prison when deleted social media messages disproved the allegations against him.

Danny Kay was accused of rape in 2013. A key piece of evidence was a social media conversation between Kay and his accuser, in which he appeared to be apologizing for nonconsensual sex. Kay maintained that the conversation shown to the jury was incomplete, but he believed the full conversation had been deleted and could not be retrieved. Fortunately for him, a fellow inmate convinced Kay that the conversation could be recovered. Kay’s sister-in-law logged in to his account and found an archived version of the messages in just a few minutes. Mr. Kay challenged his conviction, which the Court of Appeal in London overturned, finding that the full exchange supported Mr. Kay’s version of the story.

In November of 2017, a federal appeals court rejected employment-related site Glassdoor’s claim that its users had a First Amendment right to anonymity that would protect their information from disclosure pursuant to a grand jury subpoena. The panel also sustained a contempt order that was entered by the district court to enforce the decision.  (In re Grand Jury Subpoena, No. 16-03-217, Civ. No. 17-16221, D.C.No. 2:17-mc-00036-DJH (9th Cir. Nov. 8, 2017)).  (We had previously covered an unrelated case involving anonymity of reviews on Glassdoor.com posted by former employees here.)

Most of us have a number of social media or other online profiles. A digital will enables you to set out, in one place, your instructions on how you want each of these profiles to be handled after your death.

The German law on hate speech (Network Enforcement Act – Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz) which came into effect on October 1, 2017 is continuously subject to criticism. Its legal and political implications in regard of the current global debate on the dealing with different opinions, the power and influence of social media on information and disinformation and its place in the context of an increasing fragmentation of the internet are widely discussed throughout media (i.e. see our posts here and here).

Since January 1, 2018, social media providers are now obliged to maintain a procedure for complaints. This procedure forms a core element of the law, as the obligation on the social media provider to delete unlawful content and the time period for deletion are triggered by the receipt of a complaint.