Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
In recent years people have found themselves in hot water on social media for saying and posting things they believed were not harmful or offensive. With just one Tweet or Facebook post, we have seen users expose themselves to reputational damage, suits involving libel and/or slander, and claims due to incidents of publishing or broadcasting information.
Cause for concern
Looking back, to where we are now in terms of technology, the liability landscape has changed. We have come a long way in terms of our social media usage, and the fact that most people have cellphones where, for example, people secretly record things, poses significant risk.
Now that we have virtual meetings and other platforms, there’s also recordings that have caused harm and spread like wildfire across social media… ‘CPS board member caught recording badmouthing parents and teachers’, ‘entire California school board out after disparaging parents on accidental Zoom broadcast’.
FAnews spoke to Simon Colman, Business Head of Digital and Financial Lines at SHA Risk Specialists, about the liability issues around social media.