ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of some of the key legal issues associated with blogging and using social media under the laws of England and Wales. It aims to equip users of the social web with a basic level of knowledge of the relevant laws in the UK, including both the risks and users’ rights. It also addresses some of the ways that the law has adapted to face the new challenges of the social web and how service providers have been affected. The speed with which the web has developed in recent years has resulted in many issues remaining untested by the courts, so by necessity some of our analysis is speculative, based on disputes that have been seĴled before reaching the courts, or on cases from other jurisdictions where different laws may apply.
