Court Admits Social Videos as Evidence in Muliaga Trial - A Reminder That Posts Don’t Stay Online
A Superior Court judge has ruled that jurors in the murder trial of John Mike Muliaga can view two social media videos tied to the 2021 altercation that resulted in the death of Jaron Weilbacher, with at least one clip cleared for presentation under the court’s parameters. Strip away the courtroom drama, and you’re left with a practical signal for the industry: social video captured by bystanders isn’t just viral content - it’s courtroom-grade evidence. The key takeaway here is about authentication and retention. If a clip can make it in front of a jury, the bar for establishing provenance, continuity, and context is being met more often, and platforms, creators, and brands should assume that discovery and subpoenas will follow the most consequential posts.
What this means for creators and social teams: your footage can be legally discoverable whether or not it remains public. Maintain original files, preserve metadata, and document source URLs and timestamps. If you work in news, advocacy, or crisis comms, set policies for handling graphic incidents (age gates, warnings, minimal edits that don’t strip metadata) and coordinate early with legal on takedowns vs. retention to avoid spoliation issues. Worth noting for brands: think twice before reposting volatile UGC. Verify ownership, context, and permissions, and consider adjacency risks - even if platforms permit “newsworthy” violent content, recommendation systems often throttle reach and advertisers will face brand suitability tradeoffs. For platforms and agencies, expect continued pressure to respond to subpoenas, improve audit trails, and clarify how removals, archiving, and appeals interact with legal holds.
The bigger picture: courts are increasingly comfortable treating social footage as primary evidence. That elevates the operational importance of content governance - not just what you publish, but how you store, label, and potentially produce it. The hype is that “everything is evidence now”; the reality is tighter workflows, clearer policies, and faster coordination between social, trust & safety, and legal. In other words, plan for the day your post leaves the feed and enters the record.