If a felon banned from possessing guns posts a video with guns to social media, and a law enforcement agent sees it, can it be used as evidence? A Massachusetts state court says yes. Averyk Carrasquillo, the convicted felon in question, did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when posting his video to Snapchat, said the court. Moreover, there was no constitutional violation when that same video was used against him.

• Courthouse News Service also notes that the state court's opinion quoted Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said that "such a categorical rule is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks.”

• Furthermore, when Carrasquillo accepted the friend request of the undercover cop, he demonstrated that he did not control access to his account, and the court refused to require that the officer identify himself as such when investigating Carrasquillo. To do so would render ‘virtually all undercover work’ unconstitutional,” the court said, notes the ABA Journal, citing a federal appeals court decision. “This we decline to do.”

Social Media 2.0?

Forbes digs in on what may be the changing face of Social Media, pointing to services like Twitch and Clubhouse as a new form of social media with more privacy and a different monetization model. These new platforms are more content-driven (meaning you log on to interact with content you specifically selected), and look to change the behavior of Social Media 1.0, which we have come to view negatively.

The Verdict

How private can we say social media is? Especially when you grant access to strangers? Carrasquillo seems to have given up his right to any sort of privacy when he posted illegal actions to his account, and granted wide access to it.