#Winning the Battle with Social Media and Electronic Discovery

It seems all too easy to poke fun at Charlie Sheen’s antics of late. And, while they serve as cautionary tales in numerous contexts, his use of social media to launch his “tiger blood” fueled rampage against his former employer may mean that these rants may actually turn into evidence someday soon in his breach of contract action. On one hand, his public meltdown was surely a high water mark for social media as a window into the real-time (can’t look away) train wreck that is now Mr. Sheen’s career. After all, he now has over 3 million Twitter followers and for those who don’t expressly follow his now infamous rants (e.g.,“#winning”) other media outlets stand by to repost and re-tweet every scintillating (less than 140 character) proclamation.

For those who think that they’d prefer to have less Sheen in their daily diets, let’s use his 15 minutes of über-fame to examine the impact of social media on the traditionally email oriented electronic discovery process we’ve all come to know and love. On balance, while the electronic discovery and regulatory issues are all fundamentally the same, the social media genre does genuinely pose a range of tactical and strategic challenges.

Accept Reality and Plan Accordingly

For many organizations, it’s easy to exhale as they’ve finally reigned in some of the email chaos during the 2000s. But, this small victory in the larger information management war has been eclipsed by new challenges posed by social media. The problem isn’t just that the types (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) are increasing at a mind numbing speed, but the volumes of accumulated data (1 billion tweets per week) is also proliferating wildly. A recent article published under the Sedona Conference’s aegis, The Impact of the Internet and Social Media on Records and Information Management: Unexpected Bedfellows Highlight the Need for Effective Information Management –Now More than Ever points out:

“Most commentators agree that, if social networks in the workplace are inevitable, corporations must resign themselves to the inevitable and prepare accordingly. …

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Source: eDiscovery 2.0
By: Dean Gonsowski