There is momentum to reform part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields social media platforms from liability for third-party posts.… Continue reading
As the telemedicine industry continues to grow, especially in light of COVID-19, businesses should reconsider their policies and procedures in connection with telehealth services and user safety. Notably, Facebook recently responded to the growing use of telemedicine by amending its policies with respect to advertisements by telemedicine companies for prescription drugs. The new policy, which … Continue reading
Have you considered what you would like to happen to your social media accounts when you die? Where the platform gives you options, have you selected one? A while ago we wrote about what happens to your social media account when you die. Many platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have different policies about … Continue reading
June of 2017 ended with the German parliament approving the bill targeted at eliminating hate speech and fake news on social media, including on Facebook, YouTube, and Google. The law will take effect in October of 2017, and could carry fines up to EUR 50 million. We previously discussed the bill on this blog post. … Continue reading
In South Africa, employees are under the mistaken belief that what they do in their time away from the office, specifically on social media, is private and beyond the reach of their employer’s control. They fail to consider that they could face disciplinary action for their online rants and comments. This could be fatal to … Continue reading
Each year Harvard University, one of the world’s most prestigious universities, receives over 30,000 applications from prospective students for about 2,000 places in its first year class. Recently, ten of those successful applicants, due to graduate in 2021, had their offers of admission revoked before they set foot onto campus. The reason? The content of … Continue reading
A 37 year old woman from Nottingham has lost a claim for future pain and suffering following failure by a hospital to notify her of a positive result of a sexually transmitted infection with the result that the infection was left untreated for a year.… Continue reading
The German Justice Ministry has introduced a draft law that would impose fines of up to €50 million on social media companies that fail to remove hate speech and other illegal content from their platforms quickly. The fines would be imposed whenever social media companies do not remove online threats, hate speech, or slanderous fake … Continue reading
With the proliferation of so-called “fake news”, companies are starting to rely on third party organizations to perform a “fact checking” function in order to distinguish between legitimate news and fake news. The fake news epidemic gained traction in the recent US presidential election. We have previously written about the fake news problem, as well … Continue reading
In the past, concerns regarding news focussed on traditional media (typically newspapers and broadcasters) and the role they played in curating and controlling public information and sentiment. In recent months, the focus has shifted to the distribution of news on the internet and social media and the so-called ‘fake news’ problem.… Continue reading
On January 9, 2017, the Northern District of California granted Facebook’s motion to dismiss for claims brought under New Jersey’s Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act (“the TCCWNA”). In Palomino v. Facebook, Inc., a putative class of New Jersey residents challenged Facebook’s Terms of Service, which, among other provisions, require users to waive potential claims … Continue reading
In the few months leading up to the United States election, social media was flooded with articles with sensationalized titles and incendiary content. Many of these “news” stories were fake. They were written for the purpose of swaying public opinion or generating a profit from ad revenue and were often published by sham entities or … Continue reading
Service of process on a foreign defendant can be a major headache for U.S. plaintiffs, but social media is proving to be a creative solution when traditional methods have been demonstrated to fail. We previously covered a New York federal court’s ruling that permitted the Federal Trade Commission to serve the Indian defendants, operating under … Continue reading
Most people would not bring along a group of uninvited strangers to a dinner party or, even worse, a wedding. Society has certain expectations around attendance, guest lists, RSVPs, and the like. And yet, in the digital realm, these social norms may not have the same effect. What can be done about digital party crashers? … Continue reading
The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Hamburg DPA) recently issued an administrative order prohibiting Facebook from collecting and storing user data of German WhatsApp users. The Hamburg DPA also ordered Facebook to also delete all data that has already been forwarded to Facebook by WhatsApp.… Continue reading
We have previously written on social media account verification for businesses, in order to help customers deal only with the authentic brand. But what about authenticating your social media followers/users/fans/members? Unfortunately, there are currently “no methodologies available that would provide us with an exact number of non-actual member types of accounts,” according to LinkedIn’s 10-K … Continue reading
Social media platforms often require users to agree to Terms of Service or Terms of Use (“TOS”) to use the platform. These contracts can be lengthy and many social media users may not read them in their entirety before agreeing and proceeding to use the platform. This can raise particular issues in contract law, especially … Continue reading
The number of people using social media these days is staggering. For instance, Facebook has 1.65 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2016. As such, the ability to reach such a broad consumer base through social media is becoming increasingly important to businesses. Companies are no doubt eager to create social media pages … Continue reading
Facebook has won an appeal against a Belgian court ruling, which ordered it to stop tracking logged-out users who visit Facebook pages and other websites linked to Facebook. On 29 June 2016 the Brussels Court of Appeal held that the Belgian data protection authority (the Belgian Privacy Commission), which brought the original case, does not … Continue reading
Facebook became the latest American technology company to face antitrust hurdles in Europe after the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), a competition authority, opened an investigation into whether Facebook Inc., USA, Facebook Ireland Limited and Facebook Germany GmbH abused their alleged dominant position in social networking by violating data protection laws. Accordingly, unlike other proceedings … Continue reading
Liability for third-party defamatory comments on one’s personal account, whether on Facebook or another internet-based platform, is an emerging legal issue in Canadian law. If a social media “friend” posts defamatory statements about another person on your profile, or other site, can you be personally liable to the defamed person? Do you have any obligation … Continue reading
On 9 March 2016 the Düsseldorf Regional Court in Germany ruled that an online shopping site, Peek & Cloppenburg, which integrated Facebook’s “like” button into its website had violated users’ privacy rights. How the “like” button works The button allows website users who click on it to share instantly the pages and content from the website on … Continue reading
The explosion of social media in the past decade has caused a major shift in the way we conduct our affairs. In particular, businesses have been required to adapt to new ways of communicating with their clients. At a rate of thousands of social media applications surfacing each month, and new legal issues surrounding the … Continue reading