The use of social media by individuals and organisations has grown exponentially in the last few years. There are currently over 11.5 million users of Facebook in Australia and one million in Western Australia alone.
Twitter sees users make over 250 million ‘tweets’ per day and YouTube receives over 10 million hits from Australian visitors per month.
Social media allows sport and active recreation organizations to quickly and easily engage with their stakeholders, deliver content and information and generally provide a broader awareness of an organization existence and purpose. Being able to connect with large numbers of participants and potential participants allows organizations to increase growth and therefore increase the effectiveness of their operations.
Potential Issues
Some potential issues sporting organizations may face in their use of social media are discussed below:Public information
Facebook’s privacy policy states that any information posted on a user’s (or organization's) Facebook page becomes public information available to anyone who can legitimately access it. Whilst this allows organizations to share their content it also means that they surrender a certain degree of control over the use of this content.An example here is the use of photographs from sporting events involving organization's members. The majority of photographs used will not be problematic but circumstances may arise where participants do not wish for their image to be shared online.
The use of the image by the organization on social media may lead to complaints by participants and therefore it is important to have correct policies and clearances regarding image use in place.
Public interaction
Furthermore, the organization has limited control over how users interact with any content posted, for example comments made on photographs or videos. For the reasons above, organizations do not have a great degree of control on how their content is used elsewhere once it has been obtained by users.Public criticism/defamation
The use of Facebook and online forums gives participants a chance to voice opinions and encourages healthy discussion amongst participants. However, negative issues may arise when users take disagreements too far and an organization or one of its members may find itself being unfairly and/or inaccurately criticized on a public forum. Such an issue is often extremely upsetting for the person or organization involved. |
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Solutions
Dispute Management
As with any such situation, managing a dispute is always initially the best option. If the dispute can be mediated and/or discussed between the relevant parties then it will likely ensure a swift and inexpensive outcome for all those involved.Legal Proceedings
Legal proceedings should always be a last resort for a sporting organization due to costs and the time involved. In the situation where an organization is alleging defamation by a member on some form of social media; whilst it is a frustration to the organization, the financial damage is likely to be minimal.In light of this, legal proceedings should be considered cautiously given that obtaining an injunction to prevent someone making defamatory comments will incur legal costs in the thousands of dollars in a very short space of time. Most organizations are unlikely to have the resources to be able to justify such financial expense, particularly in a situation where they are not suffering commercial loss as a result.
Social Media Policies
However, as with most legal issues facing sporting organizations, the best solution is proactivity.Arguably, the most important step an organization can take to protect itself in its use of social media is to make sure all relevant policies and codes of conduct are updated to include references to social media.
It is likely that most organizations will have certain policies, procedures and codes of conduct that all members and participants are subject to. Such documents should include an agreement by the member that their use of social media is governed by the best interest of the organization and that any use in breach of this could result in termination of their membership.
At the end of the day this is the best leverage an organization has in relation to its members, and an organization should reserve its right to terminate membership should a member breach social media policies. Organizations therefore should be proactive in updating social media policies whenever necessary.
Legal Advice
One point that may be mentioned in any policy is that personal Facebook threads, forum entries or Twitter posts may be used for the purposes of disciplinary hearings or tribunals. These will allow the organisation to obtain and use any incriminating information if required. All your legal queries can be directed to Gibson & Gibson Perth Lawyers.
Faizan Ahmad About the Author:
This article is posted by Faizan who is the Author and Founder of TechSenser. He is a Professional Blogger from India and a passionate writer about Technology, Gadgets, How-to-Guides, etc. You can connect him on Google+.