Social media injunctions lawyers

For ages, rules that stated that injunctions needed to be served through conventional methods prevented people abused on social media from obtaining an injunction against their faceless abusers. The only remedy for victim of internet harassment was to quit Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, which often would be the advice given by the police. This meant that the abusing internet trolls were able to get away with their harassment and abuse and carry on harassing the same victim on other social media or just start picking on... Read this interesting post Harassment Injunction Lawyers Serve for the First Time Harassment Injunction via Instagram

Who owns my image and what is the law on placing third party images on the internet?

Asking social media lawyer

Although there is no current law in the UK that stops someone from taking your photograph in a public place, in many circumstances you have a legal right not to have the photograph published.

On what basis can I request Women Who Eat On Tubes or Facebook to remove my image from the internet?

You can request that Women Who Eat On Tubes or Facebook remove your photograph from the Facebook site on the basis of a right to the protection of one’s image which is enjoyed by all Europeans under European Human Rights law.
Because a person’s image constitutes one of the chief attributes of his or her personality, the law presupposes the individual’s right to control the use of that image, including the right to refuse publication. The right to protection of ones images is derived from Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights which protects one’s right to respect for private life.

What if the owner of the Facebook page Women Who Eat On Tubes claims that he has a right to publish my image under their human right of freedom of expression because they claim the page has artistic value?

Sometimes when a conflict exists between two or more human rights, one right has to give way. When a right to private life  is balanced against a right to freedom of expression, the right to private life often prevails. There has to be significant public interest for this not to be the case. An example would be to induce a public debate in relation to a mater that is clearly in the public interest.
Even then the published images must be capable of contributing to the debate as opposed to simply being sensational.

What if the owner of Women Who Eat On Tubes claims that because the photographs were taken in a place, the women featured have no right to privacy?

Taking photographs and publishing them are two different things. Just because one has a right to take a photograph in a public place, does not mean that they own the pictured individual’s unique characteristics and distinguished features. These are still owned by the pictured individual who has a right not to have them published under their right to private life. Individuals have a right to private life even in public places.

For example, a couple of years ago the Daily Mirror published an article giving details of the alleged drug-addiction treatment of a very well-known model. The article was accompanied by photographs, one of which taken secretly near the Narcotics Anonymous centre she was attending at the time. The court held that the model’s right to respect for private life was breached by the paper’s refusal to take the images down.
One of the reasons for this decision was that the photographs were taken covertly and without the model’s consent.
But even in a case where the photographs are harmless, the overriding consideration is not whether the photographs were harmful but the fact that the photographer had kept them without obtaining consent.
In many cases, photographs on Women who eat on Tubes are particularly intrusive some might find them demeaning. This significantly shifts the balance between a right to respect for private life and a right to freedom of expression, in favour of the former.

I want to remove my image from Women Who Eat On Tubes What do I need to do?

If you wish to have your photograph removed from Women Who Eat On Tubes, you should report it to the owner of the page and to Facebook using Facebook’s features or by formally writing to either or both.

By: Yair Cohen

Keeping safe on Facebook

It is not always easy to keep up with Facebook’s forever changing security and privacy settings.

The constant changes and the complexity of Facebook’s security and privacy settings leave many users exposed to privacy and security breaches and many remain uncertain as to how to ensure that their security and privacy settings are tight enough.

Weak privacy and security settings on Facebook could lead to identity theft, internet trolling and loads of other problems such as copyright theft and impersonation.

To avoid all this it is a good idea to check every now and then that your Facebook privacy and security settings are in good order.

This blog post highlights and demonstrates how to tighten the privacy and security settings of your Facebook account.

Timeline and tagging settings

If you want to avoid problems such as trolling and identify theft then begin by making small changes to your Facebook account.

• Only allow friends to post on your wall. This prevents people from trolling on your wall, looking for trouble. Go to privacy settings > who can see my stuff > who can see your future posts? > Edit then change to friends.

• Only allow friends to see what tags you’ve been posted in. Friends on Facebook can tag you in photos, statuses and just general posts. This allows everyone to learn more than they need to about you and your whereabouts. By not restricting who can see tagged content you could also put your friends at risk. Go to privacy settings > Who can see things on my timeline? > Who can see posts you’ve been tagged in on your timeline > Edit then change to friends.

• Only allow friends to see what has been posted on your timeline. This again will restrict the amount of information, about you, that is available to strangers. Go to privacy settings > Who can see things on my timeline > Who can see what others post on your timeline? > Edit then change to friends.

About

When you are on your profile page you will see your personal information (about) and underneath you will be able to edit this to control who sees this information.

• Any information you want to keep to yourself, maybe your birthday for example, click on edit in the box that it is in and change it to “only me”.

• Ensure that you go through each and every category e.g. work, family, basic info, contact info etc to check that the settings are how you want them to be. It is advisable that you set all of it to either “only me” or to “friends”. Some information is set to “public” by default so be sure to change it.

Photos

Here you should begin by viewing your profile as if you were someone who you are not friends with on Facebook to see which photos are public for anyone to view.

To do this go to your profile and click on the drop down arrow next to activity log then select view as. It will then show you how your profile appears to people who are not your Facebook friends. From here you will be able to see what photos are on display. You will then need to change the privacy settings on these photos individually.

• Click on the photos that you no longer want people to be able to see. Then click on edit and change who views it to “friends” or “only me”.

 

• If you have a large number of photos that need their privacy settings changing we suggest that you do this by album. For example, click on profile pictures and work your way through, changing who views them to “friends” or “only me” following the same way as above.

Friends

By now you have made most of your Facebook settings much safer.

If you want to take Facebook privacy a step further, consider restricting who can see your list of friends. You might want this list to only be available to your friends.

• From your profile page, click on “friends”. From here you can choose who can see this list by clicking “edit” then selecting “friends”.

There are more changes you can make to your privacy and security settings on Facebook to make it safer.  Go to the Privacy Shortcuts (padlock symbol) on the blue Facebook ribbon. From there choose who can send you messages and  who can send you friend requests.

Your Facebook page should now be as private and as secure as you want it to be and you should feel much safer online.

Defamation on the Internet - Notifying Website Hosts of Defamation

If you find that your name has been defamed on a popular website such as Amazon or Trip Advisor you might want to complain about the defamation, either by using the website’s set complaint procedure or by creating your own independent version of complaint.

If you consider taking your complaint about the defamation any further, should it not be removed immediately, you will want to ensure that your complaint is treated as sufficient legal notification to the website owners about the defamation you suffer.

A court will vigorously assess your attempts to facilitate the removal of the defamation prior to issuing legal proceedings and if the court considers that you did not take sufficient steps, it might refuse to accept that the website owners are guilty of defamation against you.

There are two methods by which you can sufficiently notify the owners of a website about your complaint regarding defamation.

The first is by following the website’s own complaint reporting process and the second is by writing your own complaint letter.  Whichever method you choose, it is important that you are able to prove the precise date and time where the website owner was first notified.

So what information should go into a defamation complaint letter?  Whether you follow the website’s procedure or create your own letter.

1.      Clearly set out your name and address.

2.      Give clear detail about the nature of the information in question.

3.      List in sufficient detail why the information is unlawful and if it is defamatory – why it is defamatory.

The above 3 elements of your complaint are the bare minimum you should include. 

In certain cases such as with websites like Amazon and Youtube you might be encouraged to use the website’s own specific complaints procedure.  You are under no obligation to follow the website's own complaint procedure but you might find it useful to do so as this will ensure that your complaint does arrive at the right place.

Always make sure that you keep good copies of any forms that you submit and of any responses that you receive from the website’s owners.

For advice on similar issues to the above read our webpage removal blog at the Internet Law Centre.

Related articles

• I am a victim of online defamation - do I need an injunction?

Business Reputation and Social Media Management (Part 4)

Social Media Lawyers: Business Reputation and Social Media Management (Part 4)

The three simple, yet crucially important steps that help prevent online reputation crisis are taken very seriously by CEOs,entrepreneurs and great leaders of companies of all shapes and sizes.

Make sure you have processes in place to regularly search the internet for your company’s name and brand.

Steve Jobs, Willie Walsh, Richard Branson and the business owner of my local printing shop all have acknowledged with their action that obtaining direct feedback from their customers is one of the most important steps they, and leaders can take to reduce the risks of their organisation having to deal with online reputation crisis.

Prevention however is only the first step that business owners need to take to reduce the risk of online damage to their company's reputation.

There are two other important steps that will tremendously help them achieve this goal. As the Dell Hell example shows, the art of LISTENING could also make a significant difference to the organisation's online reputation.

Listening to customers as a preventative measure to reduce risk of defamation against your company

Read and hear what your customers are saying about you. Make sure you have processes in place to regularly search the internet for your company’s name and brand.

If you do not have an in-house or external internet reputation management team, at least use free tools such as Google Alerts or Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com.) These tools will reveal many of the blogs and discussion groups where your company’s name has been mentioned.

This is what your customers will see when they search for your company. Hopefully, you won’t find anything alarming. Even if you don’t, you should continue monitoring any particular websites and forums that might become a hotbed for disgruntled customers.

If you do find unpleasant comments, don’t despair. It’s not the end of the world, and there is plenty you can do to repair the damage. Depending on the number of customers your company serves, it may be inevitable that some negative publicity will appear on the internet.

You cannot do anything about this, but you can certainly manage the information to make sure customers know your company is being transparent and helpful.

Read part 5 of the Business Reputation Management and Social Media series.
Read part 1 of the Business Reputation Management and Social Media series.
Read part 2 of the Business Reputation Management and Social Media series.
Read part 3 of the Business Reputation Management and Social Media series.

How to optimise your business through blogging

social media solicitor

Social Media Solicitor evaluates the benefits of using wordpress to optimise the reputation of your business.

Before deciding which blogging platform is the most beneficial for your business, consider what aim you want to achieve.  Let me tell you about what attracts me most to wordpress.


Wordpress, without a doubt is the most SEO friendly tool you can currently find. It works miracles with the search engines, particularly with Google, provided you follow a certain process. If you wish to promote an idea which relates to a particular search phrase, and if you wish to do so speedily, then your obvious choice should be Wordpress.

Most blogging platforms are very easy to use (provided you know how) and each one will give you a variety of templates and designs to work with. But only a few will allow you to work to a simple system that will make sure that your blog is actually being read.

To maximise the visibility of your new Wordpress blog, simply follow these 7 simple steps.

1.      URL (domain name): For your blog, choose a custom URL that relates to the search words that you want your blog to be found by. For example www.defamationsolicitor.co.uk (for “defamation solicitor”) or  www.socialmedialegalsupportforlistedcompanies.co.uk  (for “social media legal support for listed companies”).

2.      Creating your first post: Choose a title for your blog post that corresponds with the URL. An example of a good title would be “Legal Support For Listed Companies – why all listed companies need social media legal support”. Repeat important search phrases twice in your title if possible.

3.      Writing your first blog post: write a blog post of about 300-500 words. Include the relevant search phrases in different variations at least 2-3 times.

4.      Categories: Wordpress allows you to create categories for your blog posts. For your first blog post, create 2-3 categories that correspond with the relevant search phrases. An example of a category: “social media legal support for listed companies”. Another example “Blogging and listed companies”.

5.      Tags: Wordpress allows you to create ‘tags’ in relation to each of your posts. Tags are elements that you insert into a blog post to enhance its relevance in relation to a particular search query. Create tags that reflect the content of each blog post.

6.      Excerpt: Wordpress allows you to create an excerpt for each of your blog posts. When your blog post appears on search results, Google will pick up the excerpt and present it as a summary of your blog post. Ensure that every blog post that you create includes an excerpt that contains the relevant search phrases.

7.      Profile: Create a blogger’s profile where you tell the readers about yourself. If you include relevant search phrases in your profile, Google will display it with relevant search results in response to a relevant search.

There are other important elements that are included with Wordpress which are aimed to enhance your blog’s visibility. Other blogging platforms give you access to some of these visibility elements but Wordpress remains our favourite tool when it comes to not only blogging on behalf of our company but also when we bury down bad internet search results on behalf of our clients.



Internet Law Centre

 

# Q&A with Social Media lawyer Yair Cohen at lawyer's website Defero Law

Q&A with Yair Cohen at the legal website Defero Law (it is a bit personal)

Star Blogger: Yair Cohen at The Internet Law Centre - Defero Law

Social Media and the Law

A great article on employment law and social media.  Published on personneltoday.com.

With social media increasingly pervading our lives, Jonathan Exten-Wright looks at some of the legal challenges.

New kind of job search
Employers and recruitment agencies are able to search for potential candidates through LinkedIn's search engine. They are then able to potentially view not only an individual's expertise and skills, but also any recommendations they may have. LinkedIn recommendations are references one site user has given to another on the basis of their working relationship. Those making recommendations need to be sure they are authorised to do so and that the content is accurate, otherwise a disappointed employer could argue they had relied on a misrepresentation and sue accordingly. Individuals can also say on their profile page whether or not they are amenable to being contacted about career opportunities.
But there is a flip-side to the benefits LinkedIn.....
The shifting sands of social media and the law - 12/10/2012 - Personnel Today

Defamation Law Employees