What Do You Need To Know About Social Media Law?

Social media has become the norm, both on an individual basis and as a marketing/PR/HR/customer service tool for companies. And with that, a lot of legal issues have popped up that companies are still having trouble dealing with.
This blog was originally written in 2010, but social media is still a fairly new field for a lot of companies and they don't have a lot of precedence to go on, even today. Many of the issues from the original post are still relevent today:

Should employers monitor and regulate employee use of social media? Do they even have the right to? Last year ESPN told their on-air employees they could only tweet about ESPN related materials on their personal twitter accounts. What about copyright infringement? It seems to run rampant in social media – so is a Napster-like crackdown coming? And what about privacy issues? Google's new social network, Buzz (and now it's gone, replaced with Google+), got hit with a lawsuit from G-mail account holders upset that the new network broadcast personal information without their consent. And these are just a few of the issues.

While many of the legal questions don't have definitive answers yet, I did get some answers at a Social Media Club Detroit meeting. Karen Evans, an attorney who also is a professor and program director at Lawrence Technological University, gave a presentation called "Law and the Social Web." While she did say that actual answers would vary depending on specific cases, she gave great general info on what you can and can't do on the social web.

As far as regulating employees, Evans says companies should let their employees talk, but they should monitor what's being said. For instance say there's a twitter conversation between an employee and her friend (or another employee) that reveals that someone in the company made a remark that could be construed as sexual harassment. Even if it's in jest, the company should look into it, so they can't be accused of ignoring a possible infraction. And even worse, if you say you're monitoring your employees and you actually aren't – a situation like this could come back to bite you.

Another problem for employers? If employees inadvertently relay trade secrets over social networks. This gets tricky for the company, because once trade secrets are out there, they're really hard to get back. And you could lose them. For instance, if your process of doing something is what sets you apart, once it's out on the social web, other companies can see it and start doing the same processes. You can't really stop them and your advantage is lost.

Evans told a story about using a company's name that's not your own in social media. She told of one person who took the twitter handle HJ_Heinz, mostly as an experiment to see what happened. He wrote tweets about ketchup and ketchup recipes and the like – nothing derogatory towards the Heinz company. This went on for awhile until one day he came in and found his twitter handle had been changed to NOTHJ_Heinz. Think this is a violation of his free speech rights? No, say Evans, only the government can violate your free speech rights. Corporations aren't held to that same standard. Plus, perhaps you were violating their trademarked name.

These are just few of the tidbits that Evans imparted to the crowd at our SMCD meeting (which are open to anyone, if you're interested). For a full set of notes on what knowledge she imparted, click here to go to the notes page on the SMCD Facebook page. And if you're a Detroit peep, consider becoming a fan. You'll get info on other upcoming speakers – all for free!

So, what social media legal issues have you encountered so far? What did you do? What were the results?

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director & Yaffe Social Media Guy