FACEBOOK OR TWITTER MAY HURT YOUR DISABILITY CLAIM
You have filed a Social Security disability claim. Or, you are waiting for a hearing on a denied disability claim. Are you aware of how Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and other social media may affect your claim? You should be?
We keep getting conflicting messages from Social Security about the way they use our social media. On the one hand, an official rule comes down that administrative law judges may not search social media sites to get information about claimants. (If some judges weren't doing this, why would a rule be necessary)? On the other hand, there is a Congressional recommendation that Social Security should review every claimant's social media before awarding disability benefits.
In April, the subcommittee on healthcare of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called for Social Security to review the social media of anyone who applies for Social Security disability benefits. Lawmakers say they found hundreds of photos posted on the internet that showed disability claimants engaging in such activities as playing tennis, sports fishing tournaments, coaching their kid's baseball team, taking long road trips and, in once instance, flying a helicopter.
Do judges look you up on Google+, Facebook or Twitter before they decide whether to award disability benefits? I am certain that not all do. I am also pretty certain that some do. How do you know whether your judge does? You can't.
If a judge looks up your activities on Twitter and finds that you are enjoying some down time while waiting on your disability to be approved, it will have a negative impact, as in denial. If a judge notes a very active schedule it may be very hard for him to declare that you have a severe impairment that makes it impossible for you to perform any type of work--which is what he must do in order to award disability benefits.
What you post on social media is public and available. The judge will not cite your Facebook page in her decision; however, that doesn't mean that she was not influenced by it. And you will never have a chance to explain or defend what was there-because you will not even know it was considered off the record.
Does your social media page show that you are engaged in activities that disabled persons would not normally be expected to engage in? Are these photos subject to misinterpretation or misunderstanding? A judge who sees these photos/activities doesn't know you; he/she judges by what is seen on your internet page.
Am I encouraging clients to be dishonest? Of course not. I am encouraging them to be private. People who don't know you (have never met you) can draw conclusions about whether you are disabled or not based on the activities or photos they see on your social media. This may be taken out of context, misunderstood or misused. And therein lies the problem. Even Social Security has admitted that their judges are not trained to properly interpret what they see about clients on the internet.
I advise my clients, probably in vain, to stay off the social media or at least to be discrete in the photos and activities they post there.
We keep getting conflicting messages from Social Security about the way they use our social media. On the one hand, an official rule comes down that administrative law judges may not search social media sites to get information about claimants. (If some judges weren't doing this, why would a rule be necessary)? On the other hand, there is a Congressional recommendation that Social Security should review every claimant's social media before awarding disability benefits.
In April, the subcommittee on healthcare of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called for Social Security to review the social media of anyone who applies for Social Security disability benefits. Lawmakers say they found hundreds of photos posted on the internet that showed disability claimants engaging in such activities as playing tennis, sports fishing tournaments, coaching their kid's baseball team, taking long road trips and, in once instance, flying a helicopter.
Do judges look you up on Google+, Facebook or Twitter before they decide whether to award disability benefits? I am certain that not all do. I am also pretty certain that some do. How do you know whether your judge does? You can't.
If a judge looks up your activities on Twitter and finds that you are enjoying some down time while waiting on your disability to be approved, it will have a negative impact, as in denial. If a judge notes a very active schedule it may be very hard for him to declare that you have a severe impairment that makes it impossible for you to perform any type of work--which is what he must do in order to award disability benefits.
What you post on social media is public and available. The judge will not cite your Facebook page in her decision; however, that doesn't mean that she was not influenced by it. And you will never have a chance to explain or defend what was there-because you will not even know it was considered off the record.
Does your social media page show that you are engaged in activities that disabled persons would not normally be expected to engage in? Are these photos subject to misinterpretation or misunderstanding? A judge who sees these photos/activities doesn't know you; he/she judges by what is seen on your internet page.
Am I encouraging clients to be dishonest? Of course not. I am encouraging them to be private. People who don't know you (have never met you) can draw conclusions about whether you are disabled or not based on the activities or photos they see on your social media. This may be taken out of context, misunderstood or misused. And therein lies the problem. Even Social Security has admitted that their judges are not trained to properly interpret what they see about clients on the internet.
I advise my clients, probably in vain, to stay off the social media or at least to be discrete in the photos and activities they post there.
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