Social Media Vs. the Legal System

Social Media vs. the Legal System

Maggie Sammarco

Legal 100

Strayer University

Professor Smallwood

Social media is changing the world as we know it in more ways than one. Social media is opening up a new door for producers and consumers. People always seem to be checking their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, even from hand held devices while on the go. Social media pages get millions of users every day from around the world, so businesses are starting to join in on the social media craze and use it for their own business goals and missions. Businesses are uses social media as quick and easy advertisement and marketing.

According to Bagley (2013), legal astuteness is the “ability of a manager to communicate effectively with counsel and to work together to solve complex problems,” (page 11). The four components of a legally astute social media marketing manager are: the acceptance of the importance of the law to the success of the business, a proactive mindset toward legal issues and regulations, the ability to use informed judgment when faced with decisions regarding legal implications, and having the knowledge of specific laws, regulations, tools, and resources (Bagley, 2013). A social media marketing manager of Facebook needs to recognize that the law is still important in the cyber world and understand the law in regards to the aspects, such as customer privacy and taxation, of Facebook. A good astute manager becomes intimate with the laws and regulations concerning their business using Facebook as a resource. An astute manager will be proactive in researching laws and regulations concerning marketing on Facebook so that issues and crises can be avoided. Since an astute manager is proactive in having knowledge of the laws concerning Facebook, then he or she can make good decisions when faced with legal allegations. This is especially important because having good judgment when making decisions is key to protecting the company when using Facebook for marketing and conducting business. Finally, it is essential that an astute manager knows the tools and how to use those tools needed to manage legal astute of social media marketing. Using social media, like Facebook, to conduct business can be very rewarding, however can be very risky, so it is good that an astute manager knows how to minimize those risks and using the four components will help in the mitigation.

Alternative dispute resolution is the use of techniques to resolve disputes without litigation (Bagley, 2013, page 58). The techniques or methods used for alternative dispute resolution include, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, med-arb, arb-med, mini-trials, and summary jury