Q: In recent months I have received numerous emails asking me about the legal and personal implications of using various social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. From miffed employees who have had their access restricted by beady eyed employers, to jilted lovers who have used these sites to rather publicly vent their frustrations about their exes to new users of the sites who wish to ensure they do not forego their privacy by being members…the questions keep coming! So I have dedicated this month’s Ask Ambi to Facebook. I hope all of you that have written in will find your questions answered in my column.

A: The rise in the use of social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook has led to much debate as to the legal repurcussions of use of, and certain conduct on, these sites. In my view it is only a matter of time before there will be a spate of Facebook related litigation which may set legal precedents for the future. In the meantime I discuss below the potential causes of action which may arise and legal rights which could be breached from misuse of these sites.

Defamation:

The nature of these sites mean that people often end up having debates that they would normally have more privately, either a one to one gossip or a bitching session in the office kitchen, and take them in an entirely different direction which mean the debate is now on a global level.

For example in the US town of Carmen, Alberta a number of unsolved sexual attacks had taken place over a period of time, without the perpetrator being caught, leading some residents to start up a Facebook group called ‘Kiss My Ass Carmen Rapist’ and leading to comments being posted by users speculating over the identity of the rapist and naming potential suspects. This ultimately led to the group being removed from the site due to the potential of defamation actions against the individuals and the site itself.

Defamation law has applied to the internet for many years now and therefore applies to all the networking sites which people use everyday. A defamatory statement can be broadly defined as a statement which is published about a person that lowers their reputation in the estimation of others and/or causes them to be shunned or hated. The most widely used defence in defamation is justification, i.e to prove that the allegation is true, which can often be much more challenging than one might first assume.

In terms of Facebook there is the more obvious defamatory statements such as suggesting a person could be a rape suspect and then there are the less obvious but still defamatory comments which have been the subject of many of your emails to me.To answer a few of your specific emails; yes you could give rise to a defamation action if you post a comment publicly or even to selected online ‘friends’ (some of whom may find it amusing to pass on your comment) calling someone a slapper, a stalker or a stingy bastard. One potentially also invites a defamation action by suggesting someone is sexually inferior (due to technique or ahem…size), stupid or a chav.

The consequences? The victim of your ‘cusses’ could sue you for libel and you could get taken to court and asked to prove the allegations you make, failing which you could end up being ordered to pay thousands of pounds worth of damages and legal costs plus you end up with a public court judgment against you. Does it make you think twice about posting that bitchy comment about your ex in a fit of pique at 2am when you have had one too many? I hope so. For years people have been saying drinking and dialling is the cause of social humiliation but I fear that drinking and Facebooking could result in more than just a slightly wounded ego particularly when your audience is not one recipient but potentially the world and its mother. My advice is if you really want to have a go at someone and vent your frustrations you are better off writing it on a piece of paper which you then shred rather than posting something inappropriate which you may remove once you have calmed down but will be forever inscribed on the pages of the world wide web and can be retrieved should someone really want it to be. The notion that deleting web pages or postings covers all one’s tracks is truly naive.

Privacy:

Whenever an individual voluntarily offers information about themselves to the world at large they effectively forego the right to keep that information private and to complain about use of that information by third parties. As the use of social networking sites has boomed the inevitable consequence has been that some individuals have disclosed some of their most intimate personal details and by doing so relinquished their privacy.

Many of you have asked about how personal details you have posted can impact upon you and the answer is that this is dependant upon what information you have disclosed as to the impact upon different areas of your life. Those of you that have described yourselves as smokers on your MySpace page and then apply for life insurance and avoiding informing your insurers about your smoking status (reassuring yourself that you are a casual smoker) could find yourselves being accused of fraud, it is after all illegal to make false statements in insurance applications or claims which could lead to you obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception…AKA theft. Something the ‘missing’ canoeist John Darwin and his wife are all too painfully aware of.

For those of you constantly updating your status on Facebook such as: “9.15am X is hungover. 10.20am X is looking forward to lunch. 2.15pm X could do with a nap after lunch. 4.45pm X is counting down the minutes til it is hometime” shouldn’t be overly surprised if your boss takes you to task over your performance and refers to your status updates as evidence. Even if your boss isn’t your ‘friend’ on Facebook other colleagues of yours may be. You would be surprised how many people obtain details from people’s ‘private’ pages. You may be shocked that your ‘friends’ do this but you have to ask yourself, of all the hundreds of friends on your Facebook or MySpace pages how many are genuine friends of yours? We are not talking about your nearest and dearest/best friend since nursery school leaking this information but people you have added as friends who at the most may be one of your very close friends and at the least is merely a fleeting acquaintance.

Employers increasingly use junior employees to dig for information on prospective candidates through these social networking sites and this is something to bear in mind when you post drunken pictures of yourself, describe yourself as a swinger or edit details of how you know half of your 300 friends describing the majority of these as ’someone I hooked up with’. These are all details that can cast aspersions on your character and reputation and could potentially have serious consequences on existing or prospective employment. My advice? If you have 300 friends on Facebook then ask yourself do you really want all of these people to know all the information on your status updates? Or to know how many hook up’s you have had in the last year who have now been added as new friends? Or to see those cringey drunken photos from a wild night out? When you compare it to writing an individual letter to each of these ‘friends’ informing them of your latest exploits, relationship status and sending them intimate snaps from your latest holiday it may put it into perspective, would you really send such a letter to all 300 of your ‘friends’ on Facebook?

My parting pearls of wisdom are…use these sites, enjoy them for keeping in touch with friends, sharing holiday snaps, remembering birthdays and if you should so wish as your personal blog. But proceed with caution and don’t forget that once you type and post, those words will forever be in cyberspace and may one day come back to haunt you.
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