Postings on the internet have perpetual life. Even when deleted, things posted on the internet are able to be recovered due to metadata attached to the original posting. Subsequently, whether internet posts are public or private, they may be usable in a court of law. Lawyers and investigators have been resourceful in obtaining social media posts and getting them to be admissible in court. The duty to preserve that form of evidence usually falls back on the individual whose account it belongs to. The ethical aspects related to obtaining and using social media posts to help build a case include the methods in which posts are obtained and privacy concerns. In the contemporary era, many courts have ruled in favor of plaintiffs or defendants who file a motion to gain access to their opponent's social media accounts when they have reason to believe that information found on their accounts would be pertinent to their investigation. This project highlights the realm of using social media evidence to help build certain legal cases.
