Can Your Social Media Posts Get You Sued?

Blog Post - These days, most adult people have at least one social media account in their name..  It's true that some people avoid social media like it's the plague, but for the most part, people are doing business and socializing online using tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more.  Sharing your personal and business likes and dislikes have never been easier.  But, the question is... can you be sued for simply sharing your thoughts and opinions?  

The answer is... Yes.  There have been documented cases of people being sued for what they have posted to social media.  Recently for example, there was a man who owned two hotels in Australia and he sued another man for  posting online that the hotels owned by the man was a safe haven for pedophiles.  The hotel owner was subsequently harassed by various people who had heard about the allegations of abuse at his establishments.  One of these incidents even resulted in a physical attack on the hotel owner.  A judge ruled in the trial that there was no factual basis for the man making his slanderous post and the hotel owner was awarded $115,000 in the case. 

It's a good idea to be careful of who's in your background when taking selfies.

Do you like to take selfies?  Did you know that if you take a picture of yourself and captured someone else's image by mistake and posted it online that you can be sued?  Seems silly?  Seems unlikely?  Well, it can happen.  There are a lot of reasons why some people may not want their image to appear online.  It's their right to have their image online or not, NOT yours.  You cannot simply capture their image, even by mistake, and decide that it's okay to post it.  If you do, you're taking a legal risk.

The bottom line is, you should be careful when capturing images of others and using them online without their permission.  You should also be careful of what you say about people online as it will affect their reputation.

Social media can be a great way to share your ideas, passions, and information, but please be careful and do try to use it responsibly.  After all, it has been said that once you click that button and put content out there, it's very hard to be sure that it's not still there somewhere "on the cloud" waiting for someone to bring it back.  By all means, use social media, have fun, connect with others, and grow your business, but I also urge you to use common sense and always employ a huge dose of caution.

​Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know in the comments below.

Stephen Wicks
Founder
BlackBusinessList.Com