Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are fully integrated into our daily lives—almost like an acquired appendage. These social media platforms have become a key resource to businesses, politicians and individuals everywhere. Over the past 12 years, the percentage of adults using at least one social media platform has dramatically increased from 5 percent to 69 percent. See Social Media Fact Sheet, Pew Research Ctr. (last updated Jan. 12, 2017). The proliferation of social media serves as a font of potential evidence, but comes with some questions as to authenticity, given risks of fake accounts, impersonation and even hacking.
New Jersey courts and litigators have embraced the use of social media as evidence. Indeed, recent high profile cases relied on significant social media (namely, tweets) as persuasive evidence. See, e.g., State v. Ravi, 447 N.J. Super. 261 (App. Div. 2016). In light of the increased importance of social media evidence, the Appellate Division has begun to provide more guidance on how to authenticate such evidence and has affirmed New Jersey’s pragmatic approach to the evolving forms of electronic evidence.
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