Social Media Expert Witnesses

What is a social media expert witness?

Digital media expert witnesses have extensive experience in forms of media created and distributed using digital technologies such as websites, apps, games, and digital audio and video. Social media expert witnesses also have specific expertise in online platforms and technologies that enable users to create and share digital media content as a means of networking, communication, and entertainment. Both digital media and social media experts may also have an educational or training background in computer science, advertising, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), ecommerce, online reputation management, and/or consumer behavior and/or experience working with digital and social media in a professional capacity. Social networking expert witnesses have specific skill sets related to Internet security, Internet protocol, and online privacy. Digital media experts have a solid understanding not only of the target technology but also of the market, market share of industry leaders, and the competitive landscape.

What types of cases require a social media expert witness?

Example social and/or digital media legal cases for which Cahn Litigation Services locates expert witnesses include:

• intellectual property (patent infringement and trade secret disputes)
• internet defamation
• social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter)
• trademark infringement
• copyright infringement
• online blogs, forums, and business networks
• social gaming
• social media marketing, pay per click (PPC) marketing
• false advertising and/or fraud
• webpage design and domain names
• collaborative projects
• online photo and video sharing
• online product reviews
• computer forensics
• cybersecurity

Digital and social media expert witness case examples

Many of these cases are high profile and raise important questions about the legal and ethical implications of digital and social media technologies:

• The Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018
• The Twitter defamation lawsuit in 2017
• The YouTube copyright infringement lawsuit in 2016
• The Oracle v. Google Java copyright case in 2012
• The Napster copyright infringement case in 2000
• The Google Book Search settlement in 2008

What litigation support work might a social media or digital media expert witness be expected to perform?

Expert services could include social media investigations, social media content reviews, reverse engineering, prior art searches, conducting research and analysis on a variety of topics related to social and digital media, authoring expert reports and presentations which summarize their findings, arbitration, depositions, and expert witness testimony in a courtroom.

In addition, an attorney may seek a consulting expert for pre-litigation work. And, in high profile cases or litigation involving a significant financial stake, a law firm may require a digital media or social media expert with prior witness testimony experience.

A successful expert witness needs to have expertise as well as the ability to explain their digital and social media findings and electronic evidence to provide clear and concise explanations of complex technical concepts to judges and jurors.

Cahn Litigation Services has the experience required to turn a search for a social media expert witness around quickly, providing the right balance of expertise and testimony experience.

Related Disciplines

Social Media Expert Witness - Representative Bios

Please Note: All Cahn Litigation expert witness searches are customized to attorneys' precise specifications and preferences. Attorneys are encouraged to discuss search parameters with a Cahn search specialist.

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The below expert witness bios represent a small fraction of those Social Media experts known by Cahn Litigation Services. These bios are provided to give lawyers a sense of the Social Media landscape.

• Expert Witness #252466

  This expert is the founder of a teaching/corporate training company centered around the skills for Search Engine Optimization, Google AdWords/Pay-Per-Click and Social Media Marketing. This expert teaches these skills part-time for a continuing studies program. In addition, this expert has expert witness experience, having testified in both State and Federal Court, supporting both plaintiff and defendant, in defamation, trademark matters.

  
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• Expert Witness #255343

  This expert is an Associate Professor of Information Science and an affiliate member of Computer Science at a University. This expert's research interests include studies of interactive information retrieval/seeking, especially those involving social and collaborative aspects. This expert studies social media and data generated by wearable devices as kinds of signals that can help us understand and impact human behaviors. This expert teaches in Information Science and Data Science programs (at undergraduate and graduate levels), and this expert's research falls under and uniquely connects Computer Science, Data Science, and Information Science.

  This expert received a PhD in Information Science, an MTech, Computer Science & Engineering, and an MS, Computer Science. This expert has published and talked extensively on topics related to social and collaborative information seeking, interactive information retrieval, and social media. This expert has served as a consultant to an international organization on various Data Science projects involving social and political issues, peacekeeping, climate change, and energy.

  This expert is interested in various aspects of information seeking/retrieval, in personal, group, and social contexts. In addition to looking at information being generated and shared in online environments as a part of Information Science, this expert investigates ways to collect and transform data to meaningful information under the broad label of Data Science. This involves Big Data analytics, mobile and sensor-based data collection, and data mining and machine learning techniques. Finally, this expert is interested in investigating how data, information, and knowledge influences people's, organizations', and communities' behaviors as a part of what this expert refers to as Decision Science. This expert tries to keep a balance between studying systems and users, designing algorithms and theories, and building tools and conducting user studies.

  
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• Expert Witness #257554

  This expert has strong experience as an expert consultant on issues related to internet reputation, social media, internet defamation and rehabilitating a digital presence. This expert is a frequent presenter at conferences and private briefings globally on the subjects of SEO and Online Reputation Management. This expert founded a firm providing education on online presence and online reputation management to governments and corporations. This expert is well-published with a list of publications on SEO and ORM (Online Reputation Management).

  
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• Expert Witness #257571

  This expert is a Senior Digital Marketing Executive and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Professional with many years of proven search engine optimization and internet marketing experience, social media marketing experience, SEO, Domain Name, and Online Reputation Management Expert Witness. This expert has specific experience in "corrective advertising", this expert has designed and implemented successful plans to clean up or change/correct internet reputation using advertising and/or generating internet content, including social media campaigns. This expert has proven an ability to develop search engine marketing and social media marketing strategies and implement them successfully using search engine optimization best practices.

  
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• Expert Witness #259700

  This expert holds a PhD in Computer Science, serves as an Associate Professor for a College of Information Systems as well as director of a Human-Computer Interaction Lab. Specializing in web, privacy and social media, this expert's work began professionally as a web designer. This expert started a web design company that built commercial websites. Since moving to academia, this expert has taught web design and web programming and written a textbook on web design.

  This expert's work spans many areas, but core research interests are in understanding how people use social media to improve the way they interact with information. This expert approaches this from a computer science perspective and this expert's general research hits social networks, trust, web science, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. This expert has done a lot of work looking at how to infer information about people (like personality and political preferences) and their relationships (like trust) from social media. This expert also works on usable security, bringing HCI to the design of security and privacy systems.

  Areas of Expertise include:

  -  Social Media

  -  Social Networks

  -  Information Organization

  -  Web Sciences

  -  Recommender Systems

  -  Code analysis and review

  -  Semantic Web and Big Data

  -  Human-Computer Interaction

  -  Online Privacy

  This expert has extensive experience as an expert witness analyzing intellectual property issues, including patent validity and infringement and prior art. This expert has work as a technical expert, both pre-trial and in trial, on the workings of most major social media systems and recommender systems as well as the history and development of the web, web science, social networks, and social media.

  
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• Expert Witness #275762

  This expert founded a marketing and brand reputation consulting group and has become one of the top names in the field. This expert is well-published on Social Media, digital innovation, building strong brands in the digitally connected world, and what it takes to make a lasting impact for Social Currency, among other subjects. This expert provides media content / interviews to Forbes, Business Insider, CNN, USA Today, Bloomberg, Reuters, and various trade publications. This expert has an impressive Rule 26 List, providing over 25 instances of deposition or trial testimony.

  
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• Expert Witness #252452

  This expert is an independent consultant in matters of online reputation management, social media, infringing domains, defamation, cybersquatting, and other internet and search engine optimization-related issues. This expert's clientele ranges from publicly traded corporations to local start-ups. This expert is well known and a frequent speaker at industry conferences and often writes for industry news sites. Before becoming an independent consultant, this expert held positions in industry. This expert is an experienced expert witness, having served on several cases involving online defamation and simultaneously postings via various social media platforms. This expert knows what sorts of analytics will need to be requested in discovery to ascertain more precise numbers going well beyond the visible numbers of "likes", comments and shares.

  
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