Social Media and the Law
A lot of parents get that wide-eyed, helpless look when they talk about their children being on social media. We constantly feel behind the times! Last week I had a conversation with another parent and I thought they summed it up wonderfully: “I either feel like I’m under-reacting or over-reacting to my kids being on social media... I just wish I knew which one!”
Arinda Truter is an associate attorney with Cape Town law firm Dingley Marshall. Arinda’s main focus is ICT law - anything to do with the Internet, communications and online activity. She is particularly passionate about helping people to understand their rights and responsibilities when it comes to social media. I sat down for a Zoom chat with Arinda to get her expertise on the topic.
Dingley Marshall started their social media department to address this increasingly relevant online space. As Arinda puts it, “there are actual real-life consequences - criminal sanctions - for things happening on social media, and that makes people think”. While existing legislation has been increasingly amended to make the law more applicable for things happening online, social media remains largely unregulated. This means that existing legislation and common law needs to be applied to the fast developing world of social media.
Arinda seems to relish the challenge: “I became an attorney to help people, to help them understand what their rights are and how to enforce them. A lot of people think of social media as this void where you are completely anonymous, there are no consequences, and you can’t do anything if something happens to you. That’s what makes social media law so important for me. There needs to be someone who can sit down with you and explain your rights and responsibilities.”
I asked Arinda how people respond to her when she tells them that she is an attorney. She laughed, “People usually say that they have some traffic tickets, can I squash them?”. She also pointed out that a lot of people find the law intimidating, but it can be really helpful knowing that you can have someone experienced to come alongside you when you need support.
Before getting into the legal side of social media, I wanted to find out a bit more about how Arinda sees social media from her personal perspective. She started with a thought experiment: “Just imagine how your experience of lockdown would have been different without social media.” As Sean Case says, “Social media is not a subset of the Internet. Social media is the Internet”. It permeates our lives. We paused at this point to talk about ‘influencers’ and how foreign the concept was when we first heard of it. With photography as her hobby, Arinda spends the majority of her personal social media time on Instagram. She also enjoys catching the latest news on Twitter. She sees a great deal of benefit in social media, but she’s also aware of the potential pitfalls that come along with it. As she puts it, “Doing all this research for work has definitely impacted how I use social media”.
Key Facts for Parents
I asked Arinda what she thinks parents need to know about social media. She explained how step one is for parents to know and teach the key principles of online responsibility. She summed up the key facts for parents when it comes to social media and the law, and these were her main points:
Online actions may be virtual, but they are real.
Actions on social media have legal consequences in the real world. This means that inside jokes can be viewed as bullying, comments about a teacher can be considered defamation, and derogatory comments will be treated as hate speech.
Legal consequences apply from a young age.
In South Africa, a child has “full legal capacity from the age of 14”. This means that they can be tried in court as an adult. In fact, a child can be held legally responsible from the age of 10 if the court can show that they understood their actions.
Re-sharing is not caring.
When a person shares, forwards or ‘likes’ someone else’s post, they become as culpable as the person who initially made the post. This means that they can also be held responsible for the contents. This is true regardless of the motive behind sharing it, so you need to be very clear if you are sharing something with the intention of disagreeing with the original post.
There are usually age restrictions.
Almost all social media platforms have an age limit. When signing up, the terms and conditions will outline the minimum age for someone to be on the platform. For most social media platforms, the age limit is around 13 years old.
Sharing your own private information makes it public.
When you choose to post information about yourself online such as your photo, address, phone number or a personal opinion, it becomes public and you can no longer claim privacy rights over that information.
You may not share another person’s photo without permission.
A person’s image is protected by their right to privacy. So even if they willingly join you for a selfie, you need to get their permission to post that image online. Oh - and this also applies to parents posting pictures of their child (something that Arinda likes to call “sharenting”).
Social media is your child’s most visible CV.
This isn’t so much a legal issue, but Arinda points out that social media carries a very significant PR element. She encourages parents and children to see their social media as their most visible CV. Why? The chances are very good that every prospective boss is going to log onto social media and view your child’s profile before deciding whether or not to hire them.
Top Tips for Parents
I am a parent myself. So by this point in our conversation, I was adequately concerned! My next question for Arinda was for some advice on how parents like myself can set their kids up for success. How do we help our children to engage with social media in a way that helps them not just stay safe, but thrive? These were her top tips:
Keep open lines of communication.
Arinda explains that when something goes wrong, many children “feel like they don’t have anyone to tell, that something that happens on social media is their fault.” She says that children need to know above all that their parents are there to help and support them. Keeping healthy lines of communication open is a parent’s number one tool in keeping their child safe online.
Explore the platforms yourself.
Arinda feels strongly about this one: if your child is on a platform, you need to know how it works. Download it onto your phone and explore it yourself. Know the age restrictions. Get a sense of what sort of content is posted. Know who your child interacts with on the platform. As Arinda put it, “You wouldn’t send your child to explore the playground alone for the first time, so why send them to explore social media alone?”.
Turn off location settings.
Most platforms allow you to choose whether it has the permission to view and use your physical location. Arinda cautions parents that unless this is a requirement (such as an app which gives you map directions) then this should be turned off to protect your child’s whereabouts from becoming public knowledge. Also teach them not to post their location publicly, such as giving a caption to a photo like ‘Just having fun at Cavendish mall’.
Have clear and consistent boundaries.
Whenever rights and responsibilities are involved, there needs to be boundaries. Different parents will set different boundaries. But regardless of where and how they are set, they are only effective so long as they are clearly set and consistently maintained.
Now again, these boundaries will be unique to each family and will change as your children grow. But for anyone who might want some fresh ideas, we asked a few parents for their most helpful suggestions, and this is what they said:
Start with one account for the family. Making social media public to the family first teaches children to inherently see online content as being public to others.
Set screen time limits. There is a growing number of apps which help set limits on how and when you access social media. Some are designed for individuals while others are designed specifically for parents.
Have a common ‘charging zone’ where all the family’s devices charge at night.
Write and sign a social media agreement with your children to teach them about their responsibilities and help them feel a sense of ownership in their decisions.
Parents should model healthy patterns. This is a hard one! But we know that our children do very little of what they hear us say, and a lot of what they see us do!
Support is available.
Finally, says Arinda, if you feel like you’re punching above your weight, then support is available for all parents. A simple Google search is a good place to start, as there is some really helpful content online for parents. Arinda also points out that a lot of parents feel alone when it comes to navigating social media, but our immediate friendship networks may be a good place to seek advice as parents all around us are navigating the same issues. And likewise, if you come across a really helpful resource, share it generously with others - you might just be sitting on the key that unlocks someone else’s problem! Schools are also a good place to find support, as social media is becoming a more prominent part of school life. And, of course, if you need legal support, it’s good to know that there are people like Arinda out there, ready to help.
