What legal risks do content creators face? 5 key considerations for influencers

Content creators face the same legal risks as journalists, including defamation, copyright infringement, and privacy violations. This guide breaks down key risks and how to avoid them.

---

More people than ever are consuming news via social media, podcasts and other digital platforms. Whilst journalists have traditionally been trained on ethical and legal considerations as part of their professional education, content creators may not have had the same grounding.

To help protect yourself from facing legal issues, here are five key considerations you should keep in mind before you hit publish.

1. Defamation liability: can you back up the facts?

Defamation is generally defined as publishing a false statement that damages someone’s reputation.

Defamation laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in general, you should ensure you are publishing content based on facts that can be proved using evidence. Creators may be charged for criminal defamation or sued in court for civil damages depending on the country.

If convicted for criminal defamation, you will either be imprisoned or fined, or both. If found liable for civil defamation, you may be ordered to pay damages, apologise or retract the content or a combination of these options.

• Do: make sure you can back up what you are saying with evidence
• Don’t: publish something false that could damage someone’s reputation

2. Copyright and intellectual property: have you got permission to use other people’s work?

Only use images, video, music, or text that you’ve created yourself or have permission to use. That permission usually comes in the form of a licence, which often requires giving credit.

When you do use someone else’s work, credit them properly. This is especially important for those carrying out public interest work or creating news. For photos, that means naming the photographer. Steer clear of trademarked logos, slogans, or phrases unless you have a license to use them.

These laws are there to protect you, too. Your own original content is automatically protected by copyright the moment you publish it, online or in print.

• Do: get permission to use other people’s images, videos and music
• Don’t: use trademarked logos unless you have a license to use them

3. Privacy: is it in the public interest, or do you have consent?

Consider whether the people featured in your content have a reasonable expectation of privacy. What is considered ‘reasonable’ varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Do not interview/show faces of children without consent from a legal guardian or a parent unless the child is old enough to consent depending on the topic. Protect the identity of children in sensitive cases such as when they may be victims of offences or are accused persons.

Do not produce content about the private lives of individuals unless you can show that sharing this information is in the public interest or the individuals have given consent. When filming a specific individual for content, the general rule is to ask for their permission unless there are strong public interest reasons not to.

• Do: consider whether the people featured in your content have a reasonable expectation of privacy
• Don’t: show faces of children without consent from a legal guardian or a parent unless the child is old enough to consent depending on the topic

4. Data Protection: are you sharing personal information that isn’t yours to share?

Consider your country’s data protection laws and what public interest exceptions may apply.

Avoid unnecessarily referring to sensitive information about individuals in your content, for example health status, refugee status, and sexuality. Avoid publishing information that can identify an individual such as their full name, passport number or national identity card, phone number, residential address, or email address.

• Do: consider your country’s data protection laws
• Don’t: unnecessarily publish sensitive information about individuals

5. Verifying AI: have you checked your sources?

Verify the accuracy of the information collected through AI by double checking with reliable sources of information. To support this, in your AI prompts, request source links and explicitly instruct it not to provide false information.

It is also worth considering that any content that is primarily produced through use of AI, without sufficient human creativity, will not enjoy copyright protection. Consider both your country’s regulations and the digital platform’s policies on disclosing or labelling AI generated content.

• Do: verify the accuracy of information collected through AI
• Don’t: assume that AI generated content will enjoy copyright protection

---

More legal resources

The Thomson Reuters Foundation offers a range of free legal resources.