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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• Expert Witness #125983

  This survey expert holds a Ph.D. in Marketing with a specialization in Consumer Behavior and is a tenured Full Professor of Marketing at a university business school, teaching undergraduate and graduate students about marketing, advertising, and survey research best practices. The media has described this expert as a branding, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior specialist. A well-regarded marketing encyclopedia commissioned this expert to co-author sections on internet marketing functions and comparative advertising.

  This expert combines senior managerial and executive experience at global advertising agencies and Fortune 500 companies with strong academic and scholarly credentials, including peer-reviewed authorship. This expert has also applied both survey research methods and non-survey research methods and principles to support opinions, including consumer behavior theory and practices and social media elements.

  This expert is an experienced expert witness and litigation consultant, has been deposed on over 90 occasions, and has provided testimony on over 15 occasions.

  
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• Expert Witness #209090

  This head unit expert has over 30 years of experience across media and digital rights for mobile and head unit systems, including CarPlay, Android Auto, Widevine, and FairPlay. This expert's technology experience includes head unit architecture, adaptive streaming protocols, display aspect ratio, audio/video signal synchronization, and hardware interoperability.

  This expert has consulted for major telecommunications, publishing, technology, and social media companies. This expert has served as a testifying expert in over 60 patent, ITC, and trade secrets cases, including matters involving media streaming, digital rights management, and automotive head units.

  
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• Expert Witness #215710

  This online reputation expert has authored many books about working and doing business online, including widely used guides on internet use and search engine optimization. This expert has extensive experience with social media, from early bulletin board systems and online services through current platforms such as Instagram and X/Twitter.

  This expert has worked with many social media and online platforms, including professional networking platforms, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, legacy social networks, meetup platforms, Google social products, Twitter/X, YouTube, messaging platforms, content-sharing communities, forums, and other online communities. This expert also has experience as a trainer for a professional networking learning platform.

  This expert has provided litigation support services in social-media-related matters, including defamation matters involving social media posts and online commentary, trademark matters involving search engine optimization and influencer activity, and matters involving online content across blogs, video platforms, review sites, and other social media channels.

  This expert has extensive expert witness and litigation consultant experience.

  
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• Expert Witness #265417

  This valuation expert has over 20 years of experience and holds a founding leadership role at a firm providing reputation consulting, valuations, and testimony. This expert is experienced with social media and Internet disputes, defamation, marketing strategy analysis, and royalty rate determinations, and is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP).

  This expert has served on committees and subcommittees for prominent professional associations focused on trademark, domain name, copyright, and social media issues. This expert has been a named expert in over 100 cases and has testified in high-profile defamation litigation involving public perception and reputation issues.

  
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• Expert Witness #274364

  This data forensics expert has over 30 years of expertise in information security and data forensics, particularly data recovery, with technical aptitude spanning computers, mobile devices, operating systems, security breach response, and network hack investigation.

  This expert has expertise extending to laptop and desktop computers, solid-state drives, hard-disk drives, and a wide variety of other devices, including Apple and Android cell phones, tablets, and removable media.

  This expert is a seasoned digital forensics expert with over 10 years of experience in metadata extraction and analysis, including from social media platforms. This expert's work includes identifying, preserving, and interpreting digital evidence to support legal cases, and this expert has served as an expert witness providing testimony on the integrity and authenticity of digital data.

  This expert is an experienced expert witness and litigation consultant.

  
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• Expert Witness #279526

  This social media and computer forensics expert holds CCE, CCFE, CMFE, and CCPA credentials and has completed hundreds of hours of forensic training. This expert has earned several industry certifications, including Certified Computer Examiner (CCE), Certified Computer Forensics Examiner (CCFE), Certified Mobile Forensics Examiner (CMFE), EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE), Access Data Certified Examiner (ACE), Certified Cellebrite Operator (CCO), and Certified Cellebrite Physical Analyst (CCPA).

  This expert is very familiar with industry-standard forensic methodologies and procedures and is proficient with leading forensic tools used for computer, mobile device, and social media evidence preservation, extraction, processing, and analysis. This expert is a member of prominent digital evidence and forensic expert professional associations and is also a Licensed Private Investigator in Arizona.

  This expert has experience preserving social media accounts in civil and criminal matters, reviewing social media account data obtained through formal processes and user-provided sources, and using specialized tools designed to extract and process social media data. This expert is also a Certified Expert in Cyber Investigations and has experience as an expert witness and litigation consultant.

  
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• Expert Witness #286535

  This digital forensics expert holds a Management and Information Systems degree from a well-regarded management school at a prestigious university, later earned a law degree, and has experience working as a network administrator for a university. This expert has won numerous awards for trial advocacy abilities and now teaches trial skills as an adjunct professor of law, including topics involving law and technology, digital forensics, and evidence at legal and technical conferences.

  This expert has advised both plaintiff and defense teams on authenticating social media messages and raising issues with opposing evidence involving such messages, and has presented on those issues at CLEs and conferences. These matters may involve evidence obtained directly from a social media platform, IP address information used to trace logins to an account, and device forensics to determine whether a particular account or messages are stored on a user's phone, tablet, or computer.

  
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• Expert Witness #304218

  This algorithmic curation expert holds a PhD and is a professor at a well-regarded university. This expert has designed and built, with students, two types of personalized search methods. First, this expert designed a vector space search method to maximize user utility. Second, this expert designed a retrieval system based on an innovative type of directed topic model for a government defense exercise.

  This expert has also built a recommender system customized to select repair parts for a major appliance manufacturer. Experience leading a professional social media analytics section and a fact-checking initiative has familiarized this expert with social media data, related research, and associated advertising.

  This expert designed personalized search methods discussed in peer-reviewed work on vector space search engines that maximize expected user utility. In a government project involving report analysis, this expert also designed a personalized search method related to peer-reviewed work on timely decision analysis enabled by efficient social media modeling. This expert has expert witness experience.

  
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