Maryland Court of Appeals on Social Media Authentication

The Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that social media authentication should be held to a high standard. In Griffin v. State, 419 Md. 343, 363, 364 (2011), the Maryland Court of Appeals found social media evidence must be shown to have not been subject to hacking or other manipulation.

Circumstantial evidence under the reasonable juror standard is not sufficient. Facts in some cases before the Maryland courts indicate that if a user of a social media account has shared her password with other people courts will find there is not sufficient grounds to authenticate the evidence. However, courts have also excepted evidence in situations in which detectives also made use of special software in order to confirm the identity of a person making social media posts.

In Griffin, Maryland Court of Appeals set up a three-factor test:

1. Did the purported user acknowledge that they created the post?

2. Does analysis of the computer show that a user of the computer made the post?

3. Has the social networking site been able to confirm that a particular user made a particular post?

If any one of these three points is confirmed the social media evidence will be authenticated.

Companies are sharing your data with Facebook

What is Off-Facebook activity? By default, your Facebook account permit businesses to share information concerning your online activity with Facebook.

Companies that use Facebook's software develop kit, Facebook Pixel (code that helps companies design ad campaigns); and Facebook's other business tools share their users' activity with Facebook. Searches, purchases, and even information on when an app is accessed is shared with Facebook.

Even service providers and marketing agencies used by businesses can feed your data back to Facebook. You can access Off-Facebook Activity in Facebook under settings:

Hundreds of different companies will provide Facebook information about a particular account.

While Off-Facebook Activity can be 'turned off', Facebook will still receive information about your online activity from other businesses.

The information on Off-Facebook activity may appear only several days after it occurs. Facebook does not allow you access to all of the information about your activity that it receives.

How ephemeral is Snapchat?

The content of ephemeral social media like Snapchat may stick around for longer than you'd guess. The basic concept behind Snapchat is that messages will be automatically deleted after they have been viewed. Once all recipients of a Snapchat message have viewed a message it is deleted from the Snapchat servers. As the policy posted here makes clear, messages which are not opened will be deleted 30 days after they are sent.

When two users communicate in a one on one chat. their messages will be deleted when the chat ends, but the settings can be changed so these messages are retained for 24 hours. Snapchats can be saved by simply pressing on a chat and holding on it until a Snapchat's background turns gray.

Snappables are inactive games multiple users can play in Snapchat. These can saved by a user in the memories archive indefinitely. The online policy makes clear that Snapchat backs up snaps saved to 'Memories'.

Snapchat also hosts online 'Stories' which are public content. This content may remain after a user has deleted their post.