Legal Tech Deciphered EP7: Beyond Messaging Apps: The Rising Challenge of Social Media Data in Litigation

In this episode, we take the conversation a step further, moving from the challenges of mobile and messaging-app data to the fast-emerging frontier of social media evidence. Roisin McCrory, Meghan Ryan, David Shepherd and Uchi Jayawardhena explore how posts, private messages, ephemeral content and platform-specific multimedia are increasingly finding their way into litigation and investigations. As organisations and their employees communicate across an ever-growing mix of platforms, the speakers examine why collecting, preserving and authenticating social media data is significantly more complex than traditional forms of digital evidence. They discuss the practical challenges created by evolving platforms, restricted access pathways and constantly changing content formats, and what these developments mean for legal teams and investigators. Through emerging trends and real-world examples, the episode highlights a simple but critical reality: AI cannot analyse what you cannot reliably collect. The discussion offers insights into why social media is becoming one of the next major challenges in digital evidence and how organisations can prepare for what lies ahead.