Court cases involving digital fraud, PPC advertising, search engine marketing, and so forth can get complicated. It may be difficult for attorneys, judges, and juries to absorb detailed concepts.
But even if they struggle to understand how Google ads work, they can be easily influenced by what they’ve seen. In digital media cases, juries are usually given instructions about avoiding any social media that could influence them before and during the trail. But avoiding social media isn’t easy. It’s on our phones, in our family texts, and in our personal feeds on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Even if a juror has the best intentions, a simple ping on their phone from a friend could lead them into the digital world.
There are discussions about whether social media has become the most potent influence on society. Social media can influence people in several ways, even in court cases involving business and digital data.
As a data-driven expert witness, I have seen social media change how we see the world. And when I’m in a courtroom, discussing Google ads and what data means, I’m also there to teach the jury about how digital content manipulates and motivates viewers. As a digital media teacher and SEO business expert, I teach digital literacy in the courtroom as I unfold the facts of a case. A jury must focus on the facts, not the emotional tug. But that can be tough, because social media platforms are designed to tap into our emotions, people’s fears, empathy, humor, and affection. In turn, those feelings can resurface when presented with a data fact associated with something they saw. My goal is to get the jury and the judge back on track thinking critically.
This Expert Witness Moves Juries Away from the Feels and Focuses on the Facts
My job is to explain what data means and then translate it to a judge and jury. But if there is an emotional attachment to the data, personal biases can surface and skew a decision. I am deeply familiar with how this occurs on social media platforms. A business or idea appears in sidebar ads on YouTube and LinkedIn. Story-like ads that manipulate certain emotions run by the second on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It’s easy to understand what some digital ads are doing; Your cute puppy deserves the best gourmet dog food, doesn’t it? Other times, it’s less conspicuous. Specific colors or symbols are also specifically designed to give people ‘the feels’ so they click and buy. If a black-hat business posts a logo similar to a well-respected company, it has a chance of getting more clicks. And as a data-driven expert witness, I’m here to show how that happens and prove where the data is going. If you need a data driven expert witness to move a jury away from the ‘feels’ and toward critical thinking to win a case, contact me.
