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What Are the Risks of Posting on Social Media After a Car Accident?

Published on Jan 21, 2022 at 3:48 pm in Car Accidents.

Social media apps on phone

After you’ve been in a car accident, you might turn to social media to update your friends and family about what happened so that you can alert everyone in one place. This makes sense—you just want to get the message out there so that you don’t have to update everyone individually and let them know you’re okay. But actually, this could end up hurting you in the long run.

If you’re posting that you’re fine, or admit that you were at fault, or any other type of comment about the crash, a case you decide to file could be impacted by these statements. You may see your social media solely as your personal way to communicate with your friends and family, but the other party’s lawyers and the insurance companies could view this differently.

That’s why it’s important to understand the risks of posting on your social accounts after a car accident. Let’s take a look at those risks so you can make an informed decision after your wreck.

What to Avoid on Social Media After a Crash

You might not consider your social media presence as a means for the other party in your claim to disprove any of your claims, but it very well could be used that way. Anything you post after a car accident can be easily used against you by the other side’s representation. When you weren’t at fault for what happened and choose to take legal action, the other side will be fighting to prove they weren’t negligent, even if they were.

That’s why you’ll need to consider what you post. In fact, the best option for you is to not post at all until it’s all been resolved. That way, they don’t have any content to look through and try to find discrepancies. Otherwise, if you still want to post on social media, here are some things to avoid so that they can’t fight your claim:

  • Put all of your social accounts on private or invisible so that strangers can’t view your profiles
  • You could also temporarily deactivate your social media accounts to prevent them from seeing anything you post or have posted
  • Don’t post about the accident or mention any of your injuries
  • Also don’t post anything saying you are fine or anything that downplays your injuries
  • Turn on tagged photo review so that you can decide which tagged photos are posted to your profile
  • Also watch out for any tagged photos that you don’t want anyone to see and either contact your friend to remove them or report them to be removed
  • Even if you’ve set all your profiles to private, you should still regularly review your settings and your profiles
  • If you must post, be very careful and run your posts by your attorney first to ensure you’re not jeopardizing your case
  • Refrain from sending messages about your case over social media
  • Tell your friends to avoid posting about your accident, injuries, or any other information
  • Avoid joining chat rooms and groups about your situation, as they could be bait to get information from you
  • Google yourself regularly to check in on what comes up in the search
  • Keep all your technology that could be relevant to your claim

Even though all of these tips can help you post on your social media safely after a car wreck, your best option still is to set all your social accounts to private and temporarily stop posting. That way, you don’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing, and you can rest assured that the other party can’t dig on your profiles to harm your case.

So that you can get a better understanding of why these limitations will exist for you, let’s take a look at how the other party’s lawyers or representatives could be using your social media to help their case.

How Can Lawyers Use Your Social Accounts?

When you decide to file a car accident claim, your legal representation will fight to prove that you weren’t negligent and not at fault for what happened to you as well as prove that the other party was at fault. However, that means the representation for the other side will be doing the same for their client, whether it’s a person, company, or insurance company.

One of the tactics the other side will use to prove their client wasn’t responsible, or to lessen the responsibility they had, will be digging through your social media profiles to get evidence. This could be evidence that you’ve lied about your injuries and pain level, or that you’re overplaying what you’ve experienced. Even though you’re being completely honest about your injuries and pain levels, your posts could be misconstrued and used against you.

For example, if you’re posting to let your friends and family know that you are alive and will be okay, you could post a picture of you smiling and saying you’re fine, which doesn’t mean you aren’t hurt, it just reassures them that you’ll be okay. When the other party’s lawyers see this, though, they’ll use it to say you were lying about your injuries and that the picture of you smiling and saying you’re fine means that you are completely fine after the accident.

They could look at your posts, pictures, comments by you, comments by friends, and any other content you’re posting about the accident, your injuries, or even your everyday life. If they could infer through your posts that you’re better off than you’re claiming in your case, then they will use that against you. That’s why it’s important to know what not to post.

This can be incredibly intimidating, which is why you will want the help of your car accident lawyer. They’ll guide you through what you shouldn’t post as well as how you should handle your social accounts during this time.

Belsky & Horowitz, LLC Will Support You

After a car accident, there are so many details you’ll need to be briefed on so you understand the process of a legal claim. Having an experienced car accident attorney on your side ensures that you have all this information and will be guided every step of the way.

One of the way lawyers from Belsky & Horowitz, LLC will provide you legal support is by telling you what you should and shouldn’t post on social media throughout your claim. Reach out to our office today so we can get started helping you right away.

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