Social media is an insanely popular forum for sharing thoughts, feelings, and experiences, along with photos and videos of various events. If you have a personal injury case pending, you might want to think twice about sharing information relating to your recent personal injury. The following explains the effects that innocent social media posts about your accident or injuries could have on your case.

How a Social Media Post Could Derail Your Claim

The insurance company for the other party has a vested interest in fighting against your personal injury claim. It's not unusual for insurance companies to investigate every possible avenue for evidence to disprove your personal injury claim, from hiring private investigators to performing surveillance and combing social media posts for potential photo or video evidence.

So if the defense checks your social media profile and runs across a photo or video that suggests your injuries were not as severe as you claimed, they'll use that evidence to disprove your claim. For instance, if you claim that an auto accident has left you with severe back pain, yet there's a picture of you hiking in the woods or lifting a 12-pack of soft drinks, the defense may use this as clear and convincing evidence of your actual capabilities to the contrary of your stated claims.

What You Should Do

The best thing to do during your personal injury case is to unplug from your social media accounts and go dark. This way, you'll avoid making any social media posts that could potentially be used against you by the defense.

If you can't resist using social media, here are a few things you can do to protect yourself while your personal injury case is ongoing:

1. Don't post details about your accident or your resulting injuries. That includes uploading videos or photos or replying to comments about the accident.
2. Don't let your friends post information about you, including photos and video of you engaged in activities that could be seen as detrimental to your claim.
3. Change your privacy settings to limit or close off access to outsiders.
4. Go through your timeline and vet any pre-accident posts or tweets that could be used to limit your claim, including innocent comments about a sore neck or back prior to the accident.

These tips can keep you from inadvertently creating negative evidence against yourself that could limit or even destroy your personal injury settlement.