You have the right to PAAAAARTY (& everyone else has the right to share about it once you post it on Facebook)
Social media + law = HEADACHES.
I think part of me already knew that, so last Tuesday’s social media (SM) marketing class wasn’t quite as painful as it was for some of my classmates. During class, I learned (re-learned) a couple of important lessons about the law:
Right to privacy isn’t a new argument for me. Coming from the journalism world, I’m very familiar with laws governing celebrity’s images, public figures like government employees and more.
I also knew that once I published something to the internet, it was public property -- anyone could take it and share it. Even with privacy settings, someone could download my images and post them on their own, with no privacy, and BOOM. There goes my face (or whatever) out into the wide, wide, world.
While I’m totally fine with this (and understand what rights I’m giving up when I participate in social media), my main sadness remains with the lack of privacy laws around revenge porn.
What happens between two consenting individuals should stay that way, without any fear of revenge. Let’s work on that, eh, government?
Quite literally the oldest line in the social media “book,” if you will: once it’s out there, it’s out. Like, permanently.
As I learned from a data recovery program I used on a corrupted compact flash card just last week, NOTHING IS EVER REALLY GONE (which was wonderful for my “lost” photos, not so wonderful for people trying to erase digital pasts).
And while becoming a digital forensic specialist sounds like a really cool job, it also means there are people out there who specialize in digging up what others want to keep hidden.
So think before you post, but also truly consider fits in with what you want your digital reputation to be.
My biggest takeaway from Tuesday’s class is the processes v. best practices question. I think it’s important that my marketing team takes the time to sit down and really examine what we consider our rules for engagement on our social media channels. I fully understand our legal responsibilities (and our legal rights) and familiar with best practices for online communities, but as a marketing team, we’ve yet to define (and post) what our own rules are.
To Do #893476 After the Certificate Class is Over:
Create rules of social media engagement
Post said rules in a visible place on our social media accounts.
Create a web page or web pages focused on social media engagement on the department’s website.
Rebuild the marketing section of the RL&H website.
Have a spare five minutes? Read through my Storify to learn more about my SM marketing class on SM & the law!