Social media allows businesses to directly shape their brand identity, open a two-way relationship with customers and offer the not to be undervalued opportunity to directly mock their competitors in public, but it can also be a legal minefield.
Twenty years ago and a company’s publishing strategy would have been carefully crafted by a PR team conscious of the potential legal implications of their content. Today, a brand built up over decades could be shattered in seconds by a single libellous tweet. But avoiding disaster needn’t be difficult.
A panel of legal and social experts will be coming together at 1pm (GMT) on 25 November 2014 to offer their advice on avoiding legal pitfalls in social media.
The panel will be answering questions on
- Defamation
- Copyright violation and adapting independent content for marketing
- Liability for content posted by users
- Bad company ratings: what to do and what not to do
- The issue of whether to pay advocates – and how to disclose if you do
- What the age limits should be for brands engaging with young people on social
- Whether all information received from a social platform via apps or connect may be used under data protection laws
- The difficulty of enforcing guidelines and the self-regulating nature of the social community
- How to keep on top of the maelstrom of individual platform rules and regulations
Panel
- Paul Armstrong is owner of HERE/FORTH. Paul and his team help business leaders decide how to best use rapidly changing and emerging technologies in order to create resilient businesses of tomorrow.
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Sophie Crossley is a senior account director at global social media agency We Are Social, where she drives social media activity for clients like Heinz and Expedia across EMEA markets. Prior to We Are Social, Sophie worked in digital marketing roles for leading technology, FMCG and entertainment brands.
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Jack Gilbert is associate at Olswang. He specialises in reputation management and media and internet-related legal disputes. He regularly advises individuals, household brands and leading internet and technology companies on a variety of matters ranging from defamation, privacy and data protection to intellectual property and regulatory matters. Jack has also helped clients to prepare social media policies, respond to online crises and tackle online trolls. Jack is part of the team currently advising a group of claimants in a dispute against Google over its use of tracking cookies (Vidal-Hall v Google Inc), which is shortly due to be heard in the Court of Appeal.
- Adam Reader is social media strategist, LIDA (Direct and Digital M&C Saatchi). He heads up the growing social media department at LIDA, overseeing the strategy and delivery of work across all social channels for clients such as Virgin Holidays, Compare The Market and RAF careers.
- Andreas Splittgerber is partner in IT, internet and data protection law at Olswang. As an expert of data protection and IT law Andreas’ experience covers the whole range of IT law – including outsourcing, licensing, data protection, distribution as well as social media, e-commerce and website compliance. Andreas is regularly published in magazines, holds lectures and hosts discussions, especially on technology topics. He is one of the pioneers in social media law in Germany and published a Practical Handbook on Social Media Law in 2014 (De Gruyter Verlag). In 2012 Andreas was recognised as one of the “Top 25 IT-Lawyers in Germany” by the business publication Wirtschaftswoche.
This live discussion takes places in the comments section below. To take part, sign in (or sign up) as a Guardian comments user and submit your question or query below. You can post something now for the panel to pick up on the day or join us live.
This live Q&A is provided by Olswang, sponsors of the Guardian Media Network’s changing business hub
