Are you one of the millions of people who can’t seem to go a day without posting something to social media? Usually, this is completely fine and a great way to keep in touch with family and friends. However, if you are engaged in an ongoing personal injury lawsuit, your social media posts may negatively impact your ability to recover the compensation you deserve for your damages and injuries.
The lawyer or insurance company for the defendant may use what you post against you. They can even take things out of context to try to have the compensation amount reduced or eliminated altogether.
The Best Option Regarding Social Media and Your Personal Injury Lawsuit
Usually, the best practice is to take a social media break until the damages claim is resolved. Consider asking your family and friends to avoid posting anything about you or tagging you in anything while the case is pending.
Even if they post something innocent or unrelated to your injury, the party at-fault may take the images or words out of context and twist them into something beneficial for them. If you need more information about this, hiring a California personal injury lawyer is a smart move.
Why Adjusting Your Privacy Settings on Social Media Aren’t Enough?
You can’t rely on your social media account’s privacy settings to keep your posts private and confidential. After you have posted something online, you lose control over the words or images. In fact, at this point, it is considered public domain.
For example, if you limit access to your posts to just friends, you probably assume the insurance company isn’t on any of your friend’s lists, so you should be safe. If you have several friends, you believe that only those people can see the photos. The reality is that many people could have the “friends of friends” settings engaged, which will open up your photos to others.
If every one of your 400 friends have 400 unique friends, this means that 160K people have access to your photos. Any of these individuals can do a screen grab and then send your pictures out without restrictions or your permission or knowledge.
Most insurance companies have also figured out how to use social media to find admissible evidence. Something you may believe is unrelated, such as a happy hour after work with your co-workers, may be relevant to the accident case. The lawsuit may allege that you cannot walk due to pain from your injuries. Photos of you dancing with your friends may even destroy your compensation claim.
Contact an Attorney to Learn More
Unfortunately, personal injury law in California is complicated. If you don’t have the help of a legal professional to help you with the situation you are facing, you may not be able to get the compensation you deserve. This can lead to you finding it difficult to recover from this situation fully.