Social Media Laws You Must Know to Avoid Legal Issues

How many of you are being a part of the social media? Silly to ask such an obvious thing, right? Being a netizen is just so obvious, but are you being a responsible netizen? There are many around us who are just being on social media but being on it simply does not suffice the purpose and you must have a clear understanding of the platform you are using or you might fall into trouble. There have been ample cases where it has been found out that people just face the downside of the platform simply because people are not aware of the social media laws. Social media being a great platform has the power to turn tables overnight, but it’s time you just stop for a moment and know some of the important laws of social media.

A retweet might drag you to the court

You think you can simply say anything or tweet anything because it’s fun to do so. But think before you do that or share it in your friends’ group. You never know which post goes viral and reaches an audience that might take your post as offensive. As per the Defamation Act 2013 of the US Law, if a false statement incurs “serious harm” to someone’s reputation it would be called libelous. You might not have written it yourself, but when you retweet a content it means you are involved in the endorsement of the potentially misleading comment which might result in facing legal measures inflicted upon you. Even if you delete the post that might not help as by then it might have reached a potential number of influential people and you will be asked to pay for the damages incurred.

Your employer cannot take your rights over social media

Just like you have some social responsibilities while you are using the social media, you have some rights as well. There have been cases where the employer has taken action over the employee just because the person has given some negative comments on the social media. As an individual, you have all the right to post a negative review against a business organization, posting without using offensive words and targeting an individual from the management. For a business, a consumer can be anyone and just as they have the right to speak out the displeasure against the company, the employee has the right to vent out the concerns about the management. There is a fine line between shaming and putting up grievances. The National Labor Relations Board has made it clear that an employee’s “individual griping” won’t be entertained by the committee. However, the employee can initiate group actions to seek the attention of the management for a solution. As per a case analysis of NLRB, two employees were engaged in a discussion over the terms and conditions of the employment due to which they were expelled from the office. The allegations came that they were revealing the company’s products and services and after the intervention of NLRB it the allegations were proved wrong. So, the next time if you believe your employer is taking wrong actions against you due to a social media comment make sure you seek the help of the federal body.

Use of misleading words and images

You cannot spread obscenity through words or images in the social media knowingly. This is a serious offense and you might have to give a fine or end up with an imprisonment for 2 years or both. If your action misleads a minor then the term of imprisonment can extend to 4 years. As per the US laws, the domain that has the term “porn” or “sex” does not fall in this category and will not be considered under this category.

Are you using a copyright image?

Sharing media and image in social media is the most common thing. Sometimes, you go a step forward and download those images at your free will. You cannot do that always. Just because you have found something cute and funny you have to own that. If it is a photograph, then the photographer is the owner of the image. If he has the copyright over the image, if you use it you might fall under the criminal infringement of copyright. If you need to use the image for some purpose then make sure you take prior permission before use. In such case, you need to find the source of the image. In Pinterest, you might have seen some of your pins are removed with a notification that it has copyright issues. In such a case, it might have happened the owners have made a complaint and asked for the removal.

While you are violating this law, you come under the trial and you might end up in a jail for 5 years depending on how you have used the copyrighted image. The imprisonment might be for 10 years if you make 10 more copies of the image or is stored in the data storage of your phone. If the data is in the phone for 180 days, you become responsible for the offense. Before the sentence, as per the FRCP rule, the person who is accused of the offense will be asked to submit the statement that the person has identified the offense and is ready to take up the responsibility of the loss incurred of the victim. In this case, the victim too needs to provide the statements that suggest that the intellectual property rightfully belongs to the victim.

Awareness is really important to prevent any kind of illegal activities. As per reports, most of the accused people alleged of violating social media rights are not even aware of the social media laws. Not knowing about the consequences and ignorance arises such a situation where the accused person is completely clueless that a crime is being done. As a result of which they need to face the legal issues. The other thing, the federal body suggest is whenever facing issues in the social media where you feel your safety or reputation is at stake the matters must be reported immediately.