Managing social media 24/7 Is your social media marketing breaking the law? Dom Sparkes, MD
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Managing social media 24/7
Is your social media marketing breaking the law?
Dom Sparkes, MD
1,000,000’s messages moderated 60 live clients 50 platforms 15 languages 14 years worth of moderation in 2009 alone
We spend our time managing social media…
120+ social network profiles 1,000’s conversations tracked 100,000’s mentions monitored 365 / 24 / 7
Since 2003, brands have entrusted their reputation to Tempero…
Is yourSocial Media Marketing breaking the law?
• Our survey of 200 senior execs found 81% rated their knowledge of law regulating online activity non-existent
• Case law is thin on the ground
• Some simple measures can help protect your brand
• You don’t have to spend a fortune
• Full UGC & the law guide is available to download from
tempero.co.uk
• Slides are available from me, [email protected]
• Oh, and I’m not a lawyer so the explanations will be brief!
What is the greater risk?
Libel What is it?
“Any statement which hurts an individual’s reputation.”
2008 Research by YouGov found three quarters of internet users who comment online realise they could be breaking libel laws.
What’s the risk?
You may be seen in law as a Publisher & Editor
The website, ISP, and writer can potentially all be sued
An audience of one is enough
Someone else published it first is not a defence.
Libel How to mitigate the risk
Ironically, moderating can potentially increase the risk
At the same time,
Danvers Baillieu, Associate at Winston Strawn says…
“If you edit or run a group or community, even if you're not responsible for the hosting of content (such as a Flickr group), then choosing not to exercise control and ignoring requests to remove defamatory or illegal content would not be a defence to any claims brought against you.”
Have a clear complaints policy and procedure
Be prompt in removing any material that provokes a complaint
Provide clear guidance and 'rules of play' to discourage defamation by users
Contempt of court
What is it?
When a court’s authority is not upheld, such as disobeying a court order, that action is held as contempt of court.
Importantly for UGC, Contempt of court applies equally to content published by professional writers and the general public.
What’s the risk?
We see messages that in are in contempt daily
Users often don’t realise they are in contempt of court
Some purposefully try to publish information about live cases
Contempt of court
How to mitigate the risk
The good news…
If you’re unaware of content in contempt of court you may be protected
But - You must have a way of acting upon reports
Make sure channels of communication from users are monitored.
In 2001 ISP Demon Internet successfully argued they could not be held in contempt
Previously Demon had been the first ISP sued for being too slow to remove defamatory comments
Copyright What is it?
Intellectual Property is the ‘creations of the mind’ - whether industrial property (trademarks, patents and industrial designs) or Copyright (artistic and literary works).”
What’s the risk?
Copyright protection is automatic. No contract needed
Video, brands or trademark characters as avatars risk areas
Users will have copyright over original content
EU E-Commerce Directive may protect you
Quality, not the quantity is looked at in court, e.g. Individual tweets are not too short to infringe copyright
Copyright How to mitigate the risk
Have lawyers create your Terms of Use
Ensure users accept the terms
Make sure users know the details of any license
Act promptly to take down any potentially infringing material as soon as you hear about it
Take care when using content under Creative Commons – it’s not a license to use everything for free
Some recommendations… Carry out a risk assessment to evaluate the potential
issues
Create your own internal guidelines for what is and isn’t acceptable – keeping the (fuzzy) law in mind
Create and publish clear, non legalese terms & conditions so your users know the rules
Implement a robust notice and take-down procedure - robust means it must stand up to scrutiny and actually work!
Encourage users to highlight inappropriate material
Don’t over moderate – you’ll kill your community
Thank you for your time
The full UGC & The Law e-book can be found at:
www.tempero.co.uk
For further information please contact:
www.tempero.co.uk
020 7636 1200
Related Documents
