Back in 2014, the New York Police Department launched a social media initiative that at first glance seemed like a great way to improve community engagement. The law enforcement agency asked members of the public to tweet photos of themselves with NYPD officers using the hashtag #myNYPD. 

With many schools boasting large and active communities, it’s unsurprising that social media has become a  popular tool in education. Social media platforms offer an engaging way to share information and connect students, parents, and teachers. A Facebook page or Twitter account makes it easy to inform everyone that school has been closed because of snow, remind parents of important upcoming events, or simply celebrate the latest team win. 

With so many people active on social media these days, it’s hardly surprising that posts and comments on platforms like Facebook and Twitter often feature prominently during legal matters. This means that legal professionals have an obligation to protect relevant social media data from spoliation, but the challenges that come with these modern information sources extend far beyond willful destruction of evidence.

No case better illustrates the risks of social media spoliation than Lester v. Allied Concrete Company. The plaintiff had lost his wife in a tragic vehicle accident and was suing for wrongful death. Unfortunately, some Facebook photos came to light that his lawyer was afraid would prejudice the case, and he consequently told his client to delete them. “We do not want blow ups of other pics at trial,” an email from the law firm read, “so please, please clean up your Facebook and MySpace!”

As the year draws to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on everything that happened at Pagefreezer over the last 12 months. Overall, it’s been a great year for Pagefreezer. We onboarded many new customers, attended a record number of conferences, released a slew of new product updates, and welcomed some great new team members to the company.

If you deal with digital information at all, you’ve undoubtedly heard of metadata. But do you know exactly what it is? And do you understand the importance of it as it relates to litigation? To help unpack this often confusing term, we’ve put together the following metadata explanation for your review. 

There are plenty of reasons why government organizations should be on social media. But there’s no denying that this technology is a bit of a double-edged sword; social media success is never guaranteed. At the lower end of the catastrophe scale, information officers spend a lot of time and effort on social media campaigns that end up having little engagement or real ROI. At the top-end of the scale, an agency has a very public pratfall and is forced to manage its reputation in real-time as a slew of angry comments rolls in.

Social media managers in the public sector have a lot to do. There are countless posts to create and schedule, accounts to moderate, comments and inquiries to respond to, campaigns to plan, and social ads to manage. And that’s focusing only on the social media side of things—many social media professionals have responsibilities that extend to managing website content, coordinating community initiatives with other agencies, and even writing press releases.

There are many reasons why an organization might require a website archive solution. For example, it might be a public sector or financial services entity that’s legally obligated to keep accurate records of all website data. Or the organization could be aiming to better protect itself against false claims and intellectual property theft of website content. Or perhaps a completely new website is being launched and the old one has to be archived to ensure the long-term preservation of what amounts to an important historical document for the organization.

If you’re even tangentially involved in the eDiscovery process, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). But what exactly is it?