Tagged: Authentication

Delaware Adopts Less-Stringent Approach to Authentication of Social Media Evidence: The Jury, and Not the Trial Judge, Ultimately Decides

In a recent decision, the Delaware Supreme Court held a proponent of social media evidence may authenticate that evidence using the same forms of verification available under Delaware Rule of Evidence 901 to authenticate any other type of evidence, including witness testimony, corroborative circumstances, distinctive characteristics, or descriptions and explanations of the technical process or system that generated the evidence in question. In Parker v. State of Delaware, Delaware’s high court held that the trial judge may admit a social media post when there is evidence sufficient to support a finding by a reasonable juror that the proffered evidence is what its proponent claims it to be, leaving the jury to decide whether to accept or reject the evidence.

Show Me The Evidence – Use of Social Media Information at Trial

A defendant in an employment action discovers through Facebook that a plaintiff has lied about her discrimination claim. The information essentially undermines plaintiff’s entire claim. However, such information does not make it to a factfinder at trial unless the evidentiary foundations can be established — proof of authorship and timeliness. These evidentiary foundations are not easy to establish in the ever-changing medium of social media. The anonymity offered by some social networking sites may be what makes them attractive to users, but it also makes establishing authorship of content difficult. Similarly, social media sites are constantly changing, as users can add, remove or edit content at any time. As a result, recreating a post or a profile from a particular moment in time can be difficult, if not impossible, depending on how a partciluar site functions.