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In 2016, brands spent $570 million on social influencer endorsements on Instagram alone. This recode article takes a looks at how much influencers with certain followings can command, and whether they’re worth the investment.

And don’t overlook the legal issues associated with the use of social media influencers; the FTC just settled its first complaint against social media influencers individually. The case involved two online gamers who posted videos of themselves promoting a gaming site that they failed to disclose they jointly owned.

In a precedent setting opinion, the European Court of Human Rights held that the right to privacy of a Romanian man, Bogdan Bărbulescu, was violated when Bărbulescu’s employer, without explicitly notifying Bărbulescu, read personal messages that Bărbulescu sent from an online account that Bărbulescu had been asked to set up for work purposes.

In other European news, the attorney general for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, MP, has begun an inquiry into whether that jurisdiction needs to impose restrictions on social media in order to help ensure criminal defendants there get a fair trial.

More than half of Americans 50 or older now get their news from social media sites, Pew Research Center’s 2017 social media survey shows.

Celebrities who promote initial coin offerings (ICOs) on social media risk violating laws that apply to the public promotion of securities.

Facebook developed an artificial intelligence robot that can express emotion by making realistic facial expressions at appropriate times.

A college student has sued Snapchat and the Daily Mail for alleged defamation and invasion of privacy arising from the use of the student’s name and image on Discover, Snapchat’s social news feature, under the headline, “Sex, Drugs and Spring Break—College Students Descent on Miami to Party in Oceans of Booze and Haze of Pot Smoke.”

Is the threat of artificial intelligence disrupting a slew of industries less imminent than we thought?

Google created a website that uses fun illustrations to show which “how to” queries its users entered into the search engine most.

The popularity of online videos that viewers can appreciate with the sound turned off has led to striking similarities between early silent film and modern social video.

A federal appeals court in Miami held that a judge needn’t necessarily recuse herself from a case being argued by a lawyer with whom the judge is merely Facebook “friends.”

Bills in both houses of Congress propose amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to clarify that it doesn’t insulate website operators from liability for violating civil or criminal child-sex-trafficking laws.

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania held that an unemployment-benefits board acted appropriately when it relied, in part, on an applicant’s Facebook post to determine that the applicant was not entitled to benefits.

A Texas law makes cyberbullying punishable by as much as a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $4,000.

Google is trying to make it more difficult to find and profit from YouTube videos that contain extremist content by placing warnings on those videos and disabling the advertising on them.

A company backed by Mark Cuban is planning to create a social media platform that will anonymize its users’ identities using blockchain technology and attempt to cut down on trolls by charging people with bad reputations on the platform more for premium services.

The online publishing platform Medium is giving some of its content writers the option to put their work behind Medium’s subscription pay wall and get paid based on the number of “claps” that work gets.

Evolutionary psychologists aren’t at all surprised by the popularity of snooping on social media.

Tips for law firm marketers on how to best leverage Instagram.

Advice on how to pen the best automated out-of-office reply.

When you visit someone’s home these days, do you use the doorbell or text instead?

A federal district court in Wisconsin struck down the first law in the country requiring augmented-reality-game makers to go through a complicated permit-application process before their apps could be used in county parks.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 13 will implement an electronic filing system, making all new documents available to the public for free. In another attempt to advance its use of technology, SCOTUS updated its website.

Approximately 40% of the world’s population is now active on social media.

Researchers who tried to identify people suffering from depression by examining their Instagram photos had a 70% success rate.

DoNotPay, a chatbot that has helped drivers to overturn 375,000 parking tickets so far, is expanding to help consumers tackle nearly one thousand other legal issues without the help of an attorney.

The number of Internet-of-Things-related companies is fast multiplying. This Forbes piece lists the IoT categories that are attracting the most interest from entrepreneurs and investors.

Companies that allow hiring managers to check out job candidates’ social media accounts could be exposing themselves to legal trouble.

Beware requests to connect on social media from people you don’t actually know. A known hacker group used a fake LinkedIn profile to connect with people working at certain companies and trick them into installing malware on their company computers.

Using blockchain, companies organized as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations do away with the need for senior executives and managers by allowing stakeholders to vote on every decision the company faces—including the fate of employees who underperform.

A survey of 2,000 Britons about their pet social-media-peeves showed that bragging about your kids might hurt your popularity online. Read the full list of cyber activities that most people consider Facebook faux pas.

One year since agreeing with the European Commission to remove hate speech within 24 hours of receiving a complaint about it, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are removing flagged content an average of 59% of the time, the EC reports.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a catering company violated the National Labor Relations Act when it fired an employee for posting to Facebook a profane rant about his supervisor in response to that supervisor admonishing him for “chitchatting” days before the employee and his coworkers were holding a vote to unionize.

The value of the digital currency Ether could surpass Bitcoin’s value by 2018, some experts say.

The Washington Post takes a look at how the NBA is doing a particularly good job of leveraging social media and technology in general to market itself to younger fans and international consumers.

A judge in Israel ruled in favor of a landlord who took down a rental ad based on his belief that a couple wanted to rent his apartment after they sent him a text message containing festive emoji and otherwise expressing interest in the rental. The landlord brought a lawsuit against the couple for backing out on the deal, and the court held the emoji in the couple’s text “convey[ed] great optimism.” The court further determined that, although the message “did not constitute a binding contract between the parties, [it] naturally led to the Plaintiff’s great reliance on the defendants’ desire to rent his apartment.” For a survey of U.S. courts’ treatment of emoji entered into evidence, read this post on Socially Aware.

The owner of a recipe site is suing the Food Network for copyright infringement, alleging that a video the network posted on its Facebook page ripped off her how-to video for snow globe cupcakes.

Twitter’s popularity with journalists has made it a prime target for media manipulators, The New York Times’s Farhad Manjoo reports. As a result, Manjoo claims, the microblogging platform played a key role in many of the past year’s biggest misinformation campaigns.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University claims that the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account’s blocking of some Twitter users violates the First Amendment because it suppresses speech in a public forum protected by the Constitution.

Pop singer Taylor Swift, who pulled her back catalogue of music from free streaming services in 2014 saying the services don’t fairly compensate music creators, has now made her entire catalogue of music accessible via Spotify, Google Play and Amazon Music.

To encourage young people in swing constituencies to vote for Labour in the UK’s general election, some Tinder users turned their profiles over to a bot that sent other Tinder users between the ages of 18 and 25 automated messages asking if they were voting and focusing on key topics that would interest young voters.

A court ruled that a particular 98-character tweet wasn’t sufficiently creative to warrant protection under German copyright law.

Inspired by a recording posted to Snapchat of a physical attack on a 14-year-old boy, a California bill would make it illegal to “willfully record a video of the commission of a violent felony pursuant to a conspiracy with the perpetrator.”

Instagram just made it easier to identify sponsored content —something required by the FTC’s endorsement guides.

Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia now have laws that make it illegal to distribute sexually explicit photos online without the subject’s permission—content known as “revenge porn” or “non-consensual pornography.” This article explores the efficacy of those laws and other legal-recourse options.

A proposed state law would prohibit employers in Texas from discriminating against employees and prospective employees based on the political beliefs they express on their personal social media accounts (and in any other non-work-related place).

A drone helped New York City fire fighters to extinguish a building fire for the very first time.

As part of its crusade against fake news, Facebook teamed up with non-partisan fact-checkers including Snopes to flag stories that are “disputed.”

The Wall Street Journal interviewed industry experts about the challenges and opportunities artificial intelligence will present for businesses.

A Facebook Messenger chatbot created by 20-year-old helps refugees seeking asylum by asking them a series of jargon-free questions to determine which application they need to submit.

The addition of a live-streaming feature helped a dating app in China to generate $194.8 million in revenue during Q4 alone.

While we’re on the subject of dating, is flirting on LinkedIn a faux pas?

In the wake of a successful social media conference in San Francisco, Socially Aware co-editors John Delaney and Aaron Rubin are revved up and ready to chair (John) and present (Aaron and John) at another Practicing Law Institute (PLI) 2017 Social Media conference! This one will be held in New York City on Wednesday, February 15, and will be webcasted.

Attendees and webcast listeners will learn how to leverage social-media-marketing opportunities while minimizing their companies’ risks from entirely new panels of industry experts, lawyers and regulators.

Topics to be addressed will include:

  • Key developments shaping social media law
  • Emerging best practices for staying out of trouble
  • Risk mitigation strategies regarding user-generated content and online marketing
  • Legal considerations regarding use of personal devices and other workplace issues

Other special features of the conference include:

  • Regulators panel: guidance on enforcement priorities for social media and mobile apps
  • In-house panel: practical tips for handling real-world issues
  • Potential ethical issues relating to the use of social media by attorneys

The conference will end with a networking cocktail reception—a great way to meet others who share your interest in social media, mobile apps and other emerging technologies.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get up-to-date information on the fast-breaking developments in the critical area of social media and mobile apps so that you can most effectively meet the needs of your clients.

For more information or to register, please visit PLI’s website here.  We hope to see you there!

Social media is transforming the way companies interact with consumers. Learn how to make the most of these online opportunities while minimizing your company’s risk at Practicing Law Institute’s (PLI) 2017 Social Media conference, to be held in San Francisco and webcasted on Thursday, February 2nd.  The conference will be chaired by Socially Aware co-editor John Delaney, and our other co-editor, Aaron Rubin, will also be presenting at the event.

Topics to be addressed will include:

  • Key developments shaping social media law
  • Emerging best practices for staying out of trouble
  • Risk mitigation strategies regarding user-generated content and online marketing
  • Legal considerations regarding use of personal devices and other workplace issues

Other special features of the conference include:

  • Regulators panel: guidance on enforcement priorities for social media and mobile apps
  • In-house panel: practical tips for handling real-world issues
  • Potential ethical issues relating to the use of social media by attorneys

Don’t miss this opportunity to get up-to-date information on the fast-breaking developments in the critical area of social media and mobile apps so that you can most effectively meet the needs of your clients.

For more information or to register, please visit PLI’s website here.  We hope to see you there!

Google is cracking down on mobile pop-up ads by knocking down the search-result position of websites that use them.

The National Labor Relations Board decided a social media policy that Chipotle had in place for its employees violates federal labor law.

A group of lawmakers plans to introduce legislation that would criminalize revenge porn—explicit images posted to the web without the consent of the subject—at the federal level.

The Truth in Advertising organization sent the Kardashians a letter threatening to report them for violating the FTC’s endorsement guides. This isn’t the first time the legality of the famous family’s social media posts has been called into question. If only Kim would read our influencer marketing blog posts.

According to one study, 68% percent of publishers use editorial staff to create native ads.

Twitter launched a button that a company can place on its website to allow users to send a direct message to the company’s Twitter inbox.

The Center for Democracy & Technology criticized the Department of Homeland Security’s proposal to ask visa-waiver-program applicants to disclose their social media account information.

UK lawmakers issued a report calling on the big social media companies to do more to purge their platforms of hate speech and material that incites violence.

Social media is playing bigger role in jury selection, Arkansas prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers say.

A day in the life of the Economist‘s head of social media.

Seven things smart entrepreneurs do on Instagram.

Four ways to get busy people to read the email you send them.

Want to know how Facebook views your political leanings? Here’s the way to find out.

CaptureThe latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here.

In this issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award winning guide to the law and business of social media, we take a look at courts’ efforts to evaluate emoticons and emojis entered into evidence; we describe the novel way one court addressed whether counsel may conduct Internet research on jurors; we examine a recent decision finding that an employee handbook provision requiring employees to maintain a positive work environment violates the National Labor Relations Act; we discuss an FTC settlement highlighting legal risks in using social media “influencers” to promote products and services; we explore the threat ad blockers pose to the online publishing industry; we review a decision holding that counsel may face discipline for accessing opposing parties’ private social media accounts; we discuss a federal court opinion holding that the online posting of copyrighted material alone is insufficient to support personal jurisdiction under New York’s long-arm statute; and we summarize regulatory guidance applicable to social media competitions in the UK.

All this—plus an infographic illustrating the growing popularity of emoticons and emojis.

Read our newsletter.

The Internet is abuzz over the Facebook algorithm change. Here are the implications for marketers and publishers and for regular users.

U.S. Customs wants to start collecting the social media accounts for foreign travelers.

Court: Woman fired for posting to her Facebook page that she would quit her job before doing “something stupid like bash in” her co-worker’s “brains with a baseball bat” is entitled to unemployment benefits.

Does artificial intelligence have a “white guy” problem?

It appears consumers have an appetite for branded emoji: Harper’s Bazaar’s emoji keyboard was downloaded 30,000 times in 24 hours.

Meet YesJulz, Snapchat royalty.

And here’s a list of several more impossibly popular social media celebs who you’ve likely never heard of.

Seven things everyone should know about cybersecurity and social media.

Do anonymity and social mix? An interesting Q&A with the founder of Secret, an anonymous social messaging platform that was valued at $100 million before it shuttered as a result of bullying.

Hitting the Tarmac this holiday weekend? Here’s a list of free or cheap travel apps worth downloading.