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Do "Privacy Settings" on Social Media sites really mean anything?

  

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Have you ever had a friend who was behaving in a way that you thought they would later regret? Maybe they were lip synching to the pop classic “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake without any regard for pride or humiliation. Would you tell that friend, at the time that you thought their behavior was possibly going to lead to them regretting it later or would you wait until they made their own mistake and hope that they learn from it and not make it again? Everyone has moments that they wish they could either get a mulligan on or have the situation play out differently and wouldn’t result in an ensuing visit to the hospital/loss of dignity/general embarrassment.

Let’s compound the above scenario by documenting that behavior or decision and displaying it in all of it’s regrettable glory on a social network site where you have just lost all control or ability to minimize the damage that those images or information would cause. Friends, family or past/present/future employers may make a judgment on your character or trustworthiness because of an image or a comment made on your “wall”. These anecdotal tales have happened and will continue to happen as long as poor decisions are made and are caught on film (or digitally at this point).

Most of us will benefit from the fact that the attention span of most people will not be long enough to have a particularly embarrassing incident haunt us for too long. Another mitigating factor may be that we have set up privacy restrictions in order to limit the people that can view that information to only people we know and trust. These privacy settings are meant to allow only those who we feel comfortable with, understand our sense of humor or know who we are and what we stand for as opposed to strangers or people that may not “get” us. So we can sit back and relax, being rest assured that we are protected by the privacy settings that our social network has in place right? As soon as I restrict my profile and “sharing” settings I’m protected from ever having that information come back to me, aren’t I?

The short answer is, no.

That information exists on a social network and is accessible to people you may have never thought would be interested in your rocking rendition of that Timberlake classic. While this example may be fairly harmless it has the potential to have serious and possibly detrimental consequences. Most of us don’t have on going legal matters that could lead to a forensic dissection of our social media as evidence in court proceedings, but there are people who may be pursuing legal action whose claims could be called into question using the information or images on their social media.

Recently, a case came before a judge in a New York courtroom where the plaintiff was suing the defendant for personal injury that allegedly caused them to lose their enjoyment of life. The defendant countered this claim in court by requesting access to the plaintiff’s present and past information on various social media sites. The court granted this explaining that the information contained in those profiles was “material and necessary” to the case. The plaintiff obviously disagreed with this request and claimed that the information should be protected by the fourth amendment. The court rejected this claim on the basis that the plaintiff voluntarily submitted the information making it admissible.

If that plaintiff was our friend performing that rendition of their favorite JT classic while balancing themselves on a bar stool and did not appear to have lost their “enjoyment for life” then that information would be incredibly harmful to that person’s legal argument. Since the plaintiff in the above mentioned case is suing on the basis they are experiencing symptoms that are constantly affecting their quality of life then those documented actions on their social media would make it very difficult for a judge or a jury to rule in their favor. At the end of the day no one wants to see someone getting away with something that they shouldn’t, when it’s not them, at least.

What if that individual had in fact lost a majority of their “enjoyment for life” and had that image or video taken and posted on a rare occasion where they were able to momentarily and understandably cut loose and experience a moment of happiness? The problem is this information is not protected legally or even that secure on certain sites. Once an individual has permission to view that information, they can copy that information and share it with people who in turn can share it with even more people. What you thought of as private and safe is now viral and available for the world to view or make judgments on. In the case of the previously mentioned plaintiff, this unexpected turn of events may cost them living expenses or insurance assistance that they may have been entitled to had they been more cautious with their social media information.

The moral of the story is that any presumptions of privacy that an individual may believe extends to their social network may be challenged by the legal systems definition of what is actually private, as opposed to what you may believe to be private.