Social media content is now being used for more than sharing with friends and family – its use has grown, and it has already made its way into the courtroom. There has been a lot of discussion around the use of social media content as evidence in a trial – while it is becoming more commonplace, there are best practices and things to be aware of when doing so.

A recent article discusses the fact that social media content will play a key role in proving a Houston area man was in fact attempting to provide support to ISIS. The article shows that Facebook posts, as well as messenger conversations may be brought as evidence. Typically, public facing information is just that – available to the public. Facebook messaging conversations are private, however, and fall into a more gray area.

So, what is and is not okay to use as evidence?

This is still a murky area, but there are some best practices evolving, especially centered on what type of content and how that content is found. Here are some highlights:

• Keep it focused on public information: users are given opportunity to control their privacy settings, whether they realize it or not. Therefore, whatever is public facing, meaning it is easily found through a Google search, for example, seems to be fair game in the investigative process.

• Find the content using the proper channels: there is a difference between finding public content and obtaining content that is behind privacy filters under the guise of “friending” someone on a social network. By becoming a connection with someone on a social network, it often times means you will have access to content that is not available to the general public, Should this come to light during a trial, and you are using this content as evidence, it may get thrown out. This also applies to friends and family members becoming connections with others on social media sites for the purpose of gathering content on your behalf.

• Back up your evidence with evidence: in order for social media content to be considered relevant and useful in a trial, it has to be authenticated. Specifically, courts will look at the metadata behind the post – the who, where, when, and how the content was posted and discovered. Many social media monitoring tools, especially those geared toward working with law enforcement, lawyers, and the such will provide metadata information as part of the file. This will easily show when the content was created, the author, and potentially any modifications to the post. This metadata support will greatly assist in assuring the court that the content was not altered in any way prior to being presented as evidence, and that the content was in fact that of the author in question.

Despite social media being around for several years, this is still new terrain; following standard rules of evidence will help gauging the use of social media content. I anticipate the courts will also focus on more standards with this arena of evidence as well in the coming years, making its use more clear as evidence in a trial.