The Ramifications Of Pa. Courts' Broad Social Media Discovery Orders

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Report of Investigation (Release No. 69279, April 2, 2013) into the posting by Netflix Inc.'s CEO of a significant company milestone on his personal Facebook site compels consideration of the intersection of new opportunities for discovery available via social networking sites with the broad discovery orders that Pennsylvania trial courts have granted.

Pennsylvania trial courts generally have permitted social media discovery once the requesting party satisfies a factual predicate justifying discovery. The requesting parties are given the user's username and password, providing them access not just to information relevant to the specifics of the case, but also to the user's entire profile, which, in the case of Facebook, includes information posted by the user (such as likes and dislikes, political views and other biographical information), e-mails, instant messages, photographs and information posted by third parties on the