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Collecting Evidence on Cloned Facebook Personal Profiles

Last Updated March 2024

While users worldwide are recovering from a recent Google Docs phishing scam, another widespread, prevalent scam is still affecting Facebook users: personal profile cloning. Facebook is littered with tens of millions of fake profiles and counting, and cloners have recently been using fake Facebook profiles to extort money from and send identity theft links to real users’ families and friends. These activities pose a serious problem for nearly 2 billion active Facebook users.

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How to Conduct an Effective Social Media Investigation on Facebook

Last Updated March 2024

Co-Authored by Page Vault Staff and Eric Pesale, Write for Law

With nearly 1.8 billion users worldwide, Facebook has maintained its status as the platform of choice for users looking to share details of their personal lives publicly. If searched the right way, Facebook can be a treasure trove of discoverable data for litigators and litigation support professionals. Whether for initial research or for court evidence, if you’re wondering how to collect social media data on Facebook, these four tips will help guide your social media investigation research in the right direction.

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What You Need for Authenticated Web Evidence

Last Updated March 2024

Before evidence may be used in court, its authenticity must be established—proof that the evidence is really what the offering party says it is. Authenticating evidence captured from the internet or social media can be tricky. In fact, before they allow it in a courtroom, many judges subject web and social media evidence to closer examination than other evidence because it is believed to be more easily manipulated. As Maryland’s Judge Paul Grimm noted in Lorriane v. Markel American Ins. Co, 241 F.R.D. 534, 542 (D. Md. 2007), “[a]uthentication of ESI [electronically stored information] may require greater scrutiny than that required for the authentication of ‘hard copy’ documents.”

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Authenticating Social Media Evidence: Federal Rules of Evidence 901(b)(1)

Last Updated March 2024

By Elana Harris

As mentioned in Part I of this series, Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 901 deals with authentication. FRE 901(a) requires that each item of evidence be authenticated by producing “evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims.” Rule 901(b) provides a list of suggested ways to authenticate evidence. Several of the enumerated methods are particularly relevant to social media evidence and other webpage evidence such as blogs and corporate websites. In Part II of this series, we will discuss the challenges of authenticating social media evidence under Rule 901(b)(1). In particular, we will examine the issues that arise when the testifying witness presents printouts of a third party’s social media page to show that the party owns the profile and authored the content.