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Can social media posts be used as evidence?

On Behalf of | Nov 9, 2023 | Evidence

If you’re facing criminal charges, it’s important to be very careful about what you post on social media. Ideally, you probably don’t want to talk about the case at all. You may even want to go back to previous posts to consider what you have written or shared already.

The issue is that social media evidence is often admissible in court. The things that you post could be used against you, so you want to be very conscious not to say, write, like or share anything that could be incriminating in any fashion.

How could this happen?

In some cases, social media posts have to be analyzed closely. Investigators may just be looking for relationships between certain people or evidence that they spent time together. If one person is accused of assaulting another, for instance, social media posts detailing when they planned to meet up could be useful evidence to show that they were together when the assault occurred.

But in other cases, people will post things that are far more directly incriminating. One man who has been accused of murder after a shooting allegedly posted on Facebook about how much he disliked the victim. Reports claim that this occurred right after the crime. In other cases, teenagers have been accused of bragging about crimes on social media. For instance, they would brag about buying or possessing guns or illegal drugs, according to the police.

The legal process

Once again, the best tactic overall is likely just to stay off of social media and not post about any parts of the legal process. Instead, if you’ve been accused of a crime, focus on learning about your legal defense options and the steps you need to take moving forward.