Are There Laws against Social Media Privacy?

There are no laws against social media privacy as of yet. However, there are certain instances where someone can pierce the privacy veil that a user has over their social networking profile. However, it is important to note that the user must have done something very wrong in order for this to happen or at least have reasonable doubt that the user did something wrong.

The new use of the social media systems is for law enforcement to use the systems to aid their investigations. Most people would not have a problem with this because most people would like their streets safer. However, the use of these systems in investigations requires the police or investigators to pierce the privacy of that social media network user. There are some people who would have qualms about this use. However, the use of the system still needs to be litigated because it is a whole new territory of evidence that was not considered when the laws were originally drawn up. Most likely, in the future, it will require the use of a warrant and cooperation from the social media company and/or some legal hacking (legal hacking in this case being legally contracted to crack the log in code used for their social media profile).

Another situation in which the law is gray about social media's use is hiring and firing decisions. There have been many businesses recently that have asked for passwords from their former employees and their possible new hires. This is because the business feels that they should be able to view the posts and updates from a social media user to see if they are engaged in the activity that is detrimental to the business. Many of these cases are going to litigation right now and therefore they do not have a legal precedent set as of yet.

Therefore, this practice is legal but there are many people who are fighting to make it illegal to use the social media networks for this purpose. This is because these people feel that it is an invasion in privacy for those users. This author guesses that they will be illegal to use this network in the future for this purpose. However, until that time every social media network user should be careful about how they use the social media systems and what they say on the systems.

Generally, the government will always vote in favor of more privacy for their citizens. Although this is not always the case, it is usually their stance on most issues. However, the litigation needs to happen so that we have clear-cut rules about the use of social media in hiring and firing decisions as well as investigations. This is the only way that the future of social media network use can be assured for privacy. If users lose their privacy on the social networks, then the social networks can expect to close down. This is because social media privacy is not a privilege it is a right that everyone expects to have on the social media networks.