According to Michelle Sherman, Esq. in an article Social Media Applied she used statistics from a 2010 survey on social media. According to her research, 65% of Fortune Global 100 companies have Twitter accounts, and 54% have Facebook Fan pages. One third had a blog. I’m sure the numbers exceed that now.
What was interesting about the article is that according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures the above are considered ‘electronically stored information’ (ESI). In a revision in 2006 to include ESI, the term was “intended to be read expansively to include all current and future electronic storage mediums.” Accordingly, even storage in the “cloud” or on a social networking site will be treated as discoverable ESI. “Every firm that intends to communicate, or permit its associated persons to communicate, through social media sites must first ensure that it can retain records of those communications as required by Rules 17a-3 ad 17a-4 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and NASD Rule 3110.”
If you are using social networking tools, do you save the information? If so, for how long? Do you take any special precautions?
Comments are closed.