It feels nearly impossible to escape the influence of social media these days. If you’re addressing a personal injury, social media can even feel like an escape from reality. Unfortunately, your pursuit of a personal injury claim isn’t likely to be helped by social media.
In fact, social media can have a negative impact on your personal injury claim. If you try to settle your case in negotiations, insurance providers may use accident records on social media to contest your right to support. The need to present social media evidence can also lengthen a court case.
Social Media Rarely Helps Your Personal Injury Case
In the wake of an accident, it may be tempting to vent about your experience on social media. Unfortunately, this kind of mass communication poses a real threat to your possible compensation. More than that, it threatens to add a considerable amount of time to your personal injury case, particularly if you engage with a liable party online.
Social media specifically puts your right to compensation at risk by:
Location Data May Contradict Your Testimony
Social media thrives off of its internal data. This means that most social media apps have some idea of where you are in the world, whether you have your location data on or not. When it comes to a personal injury accident, this data can spell trouble for a possible civil lawsuit.
If your location data puts you at a different spot than the one at which your accident occurred, the defendant may claim that you weren’t as hindered by the accident as you claim you were. Posting that you were in one location when you were really at another, too—even if you misunderstood your location—can pose a logistical threat to your case.
Misrepresenting Your Condition
Everyone wants sympathy in the wake of a severe accident. Posting about your injuries, however, puts a lot of information about your well-being into the public’s hands. If the injuries you describe on social media don’t match up with the ones reported by a medical professional, you put your right to compensation for those losses at risk.
The same logic applies to any property damage or lost time at work you may face. With that in mind, it’s in your best interest to keep the information you share about your health and property close to the vest.
That’s not to say that you can’t tell the world that you’re still on your feet, of course. Should you want to post about your accident on social media, though, it may be in your best interest to run your copy by an attorney before you hit “send.”
Limiting Your Post-Accident Privacy
Privacy in the digital age is hard to come by. Even if you think you’re sharing information in private DMs or on a Friends Only Facebook page, other people can access that information. You may even be required to present that information should a judge rule it relevant to your personal injury case.
With that in mind, keep any information you want to share with your friends to yourself until you can see those friends in person. Similarly, ask your friends to limit how much they discuss your case online. The less social media there is to refer to regarding the case, the more watertight your demand for compensation can be.
It’s Not a Good Idea to Talk About Your Personal Injury Claim Online
It’s natural to want to vent about your accident losses after the fact. Doing so online threatens to make a possible personal injury case more complicated, though. Instead of discussing your case on threads or forums, consider meeting independently with a friend. Alternatively, therapists can help you break down your feelings about an accident.
You always have the right, too, to discuss your case with a personal injury attorney. It’s our job to help you understand how your accident occurred and what means you can use to hold a liable party accountable for your losses.
Talk to a Personal Injury Lawyer About the Impact of Social Media on Your Case
Personal injury lawyers are your allies in your fight for post-accident compensation. Whether you have questions about your use of social media or how you might pursue a case, we’re here to help at Feller & Wendt.
You can schedule a consultation with our representatives by calling our office at (801) 499-5060. We are also available to compare schedules via our contact form.
