Corporations, like individuals, are increasingly communicating through social media—whether advertising through Facebook and Instagram, hiring talent through LinkedIn, engaging in customer support through Twitter, or permitting their corporate executives and other employees to discuss their work through social media. Social media can be incredibly useful sources of evidence in civil litigation, even obviating the need to request such information through formal discovery. And because corporate social media posts are rarely vetted by outside litigation counsel (although perhaps they should be), corporate statements through social media may be more candid than those obtained through interrogatories or deposition testimony.
This article covers a few best practices for capturing social media evidence and how it may be used at each phase of civil litigation.