Legal Guide to Social Media, Second Edition: Rights and Risks for Businesses, Entrepreneurs, and Influencers

Learn how to navigate the ins and outs of the law and social media.

How should you respond to a request to remove copyrighted materials from a Facebook page? If you create a Twitter username at work, who owns the username when you change jobs? Can you be sued for libel if someone thinks your posts are defamatory? If you’ve ever asked yourself these kinds of questions, this pioneering legal handbook is for you.

Despite the enormous growth in social media usage by businesses and influencers, very little has been written about the laws affecting their activities. In this new edition of the Legal Guide to Social Media, Kimberly A. Houser, law professor and tech attorney, explains the potential pitfalls and how to avoid them including what social media influencers could have done to protect themselves from the lawsuits resulting from the Fyre Festival debacle.
 
Easy-to-understand, comprehensive, and up-to-date, the Legal Guide to Social Media, Second Edition provides the latest information on case law and statutes. It covers everything from privacy laws to the legal considerations in setting up a page or website as well as new governmental regulations. This plain English legal companion offers examples of and solutions to the kinds of situations you can expect to encounter when posting online content, whether for yourself, your own business, or on behalf of your client’s business. You’ll learn how to avoid liability for defamation and third-party posts, how to protect your own content, the unique legal issues surrounding social media in the workplace, and much, much more. The new edition covers new state regulations on privacy, data security and advertising; how to avoid intellectual property infringement actions; and the newer legal risks for influencers.

Kimberly A. Houser, law professor and tech attorney, is a highly sought after speaker on social media and the law. Her research has appeared in the Stanford Technology Law Review, Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, and the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law. Her expertise in data privacy (US and EU), artificial intelligence, US, EU, and China tech policy and regulation, 5G technology, and unconscious bias/gender diversity issues has led to invitations to speak at events such as TNW in Amsterdam (the largest tech conference in Europe), SXSW in Austin, Texas, and the Brookings Institute. In addition, in 2020 she spoke at the European Parliament in Brussels on the potential use of artificial intelligence to increase diversity in start-up funding. Prior to teaching, Kimberly practiced law in Chicago and served as general counsel to an Austin, Texas tech start-up.