The TikTok Phenomenon- Living in a Universe Without Time

There’s no doubt you have heard of TikTok, the social media platform that consists of 60-second videos typically set to music.

TikTok has one attribute worth noting for insurers and their defense counsel: there are no date stamps. They understand that any video can go viral at any time, so why deter viewers with an old date stamp.

This means that we need to work smarter to authenticate timelines.

Example: I’m testifying in a case where the plaintiff declares his new videos are rebroadcasted, from before an injury. Running the background music through Shazam then a Google search showed the song’s publication date. This authentication proves the videos were posted after the injury.

Social media remains a powerful and cheap investigation tool, provided the investigator knows where and how to look.