Whether the client is plaintiff or defendant, no-one needs any social media surprises. The sheer volume and velocity of social media can impair evidence gathering:

  • media monitoring will only turn up articles if published or broadcast in traditional media
  • pre-trial discovery can only go so far and may not capture third-party social media activity
  • traditional private investigations may not uncover pertinent evidence and information
  • services and tools used in the past no longer keep pace with the comments and conversations taking place on new digital and social media platforms
  • We moderate responses to social media to assist in any exacerbating of critical incidents
  • We offer near-real-time social media conversation surveillance, monitoring, reporting and response across multiple platforms up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
  • We provide discreet and private monitoring of social media activities.
  • We support corporate and personal evidence-based investigations.

Each and every critical incident on social media is different and requires a customised, multi-platform strategy to suit the brief.

 

Case Study

This is a genuine example where the person or subject of this social media surveillance is the potential defendant in a possible defamation action. The defendant via counsel is our client.

The subject person is the plaintiff in separate but related court action filed but not yet heard.

The subject has been continuously using social media platforms to air their grievances with respect to their action as plaintiff, and in doing so our client alleges defamation.

Our initial brief was to record and report on all social media activity by the subject with specific emphasis on anything referring to our client and matters pertaining to our client.

The subject used many social media platforms to promote their work product including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. One of the other platforms used by the subject was Snapchat and, in particular, Snapchat stories, which automatically delete after 24 hours.

We monitored the subject in real time 24 hours a day recording audio, video and text mentions of our client and relevant subject matter.

As a result, our client’s counsel successfully sought court orders against the subject preventing them from mentioning our client on any digital, online or social media platform.

Our ongoing brief was to continue to monitor the subject’s activity to determine whether they complied with the orders or not. They did not. They were arrested and charged.

However, the subject was still the plaintiff in the original matter, (the action against our client), and while our monitoring brief continued it was extended to gather further data relevant to our client as defendant in the original action.

Counsel determined that, with regard to the original matter, the subject made certain public remarks that were inconsistent with discovery. Our brief was to gather evidence in support of this, which we did.

We maintained a watching brief in the ensuing months leading up to the original matter being heard.

One Small Planet provides real-time social media conversation monitoring, and real-time reporting across multiple platforms up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.