Facebook, Tweets & Myspace for Injured Workers...Who Is Watching You?
Social networking sites are the newest way we communicate with our family, friends, and co-workers. The craze has caught on and nearly every generation is tweeting or posting status updates to their Facebook and Myspace pages. In fact, Facebook now has 400 million users worldwide. If it were a country, it would be the 4th largest behind China, India, and the United States. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people...Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months. So why does that matter to the injured worker?
It is important to keep in mind that what you say on the internet may come back to haunt you. Insurance defense firms and private investigators are beginning to monitor injured workers' status updates and tweets. Some private investigators are even making up bogus Facebook profiles of attractive men or women to target injured employees with the hope that they will accept their friend request and essentially give them access to the injured workers' daily activities.
I have already seen the seemingly innocent and often funniest status updates from injured workers who did not have privacy control settings in place. Some real examples included "going to the gym for a strenuous workout," "just got P90-X dude, game on," and by far the worst.... "I've got these doctors all fooled, they think they know me, but they don't."
Today, defense attorneys are attempting to use these updates and tweets against injured workers in court and in the doctor's office. The term "social website surveillance" has emerged as yet another weapon in the insurance industry's arsenal. In Canada, courts are beginning to order plaintiff's private social website information, including pictures and status updates, to be produced and preserved in civil actions. I imagine the idea of requesting courts to authorize similar information, even when the information is not public, is not that far away for Georgia workers' compensation cases.
My point is, be careful what you say. What happens on the internet, does not stay on the internet. Be mindful of anything you say. Even what may seem like a joke to you at the time will sound bad in court. There are hearsay objections which can be raised; however, crafty defense lawyers and lenient judges are not a safe bet in keeping these types of posts out of court.
