Social media law was not a topic on offer when I went to law
school. Now, it's a subject that's hard to avoid for any
business that has a consumer-facing social media presence. Here are
two recent cases that illustrate the potential pitfalls as this
area of law becomes more complex and more interesting:
Last week, HMV's Twitter feed was hijacked by an
employee who live-tweeted employee terminations from the
company's official Twitter account. Perhaps
"hijacked" isn't the right word, since the employee
apparently had access to the account as part of her
employment duties, though that position likely did not
involve posting descriptions of firings as "Mass execution of
loyal employees". The next day the ex-employee ("Poppy
Rose") helpfully tweeted a reminder to the company
that "you need to go to 'settings' and revoke my
account access as an admin". The lessons for
business?
