How is YouTube content preserved for legal cases?
According to Statista (2021), YouTube has more than 2.3 billion users worldwide in 2021. This platform is present in more than 100 countries, with more than 80 languages to play its videos. Every day on average, users view 1 trillion hours of video content, and billions of views are generated. Because of all this incredible data, YouTube is the second most popular social network worldwide (Datareportal, 2019).
All this leads to the conclusion that YouTube is one of the largest sources of evidence for legal proceedings. However, this does not exempt evidence obtained from this platform from being treated in the same way as any other type of digital evidence, thus having its own risks of being challenged or rejected in court.
2 Simple steps to obtain evidence from YouTube videos
Step 1: Know the details and context of the proof.
The priority has to do with the actual documentation of the video in question, which is where most of the content we want to obtain as evidence resides.
Once we have done this, we should look at the part below the video, where we can find details such as the user who uploaded the video to the platform, and the date on which it was uploaded. If we want to go deeper, we can click on the user’s logo, and we will be redirected to the YouTube channel of the user in question.
At the bottom we can also find other relevant data such as the total number of views, comments and “likes” and “dislikes” that the video has received since it was uploaded to the platform. These details are important, because they will help us to establish a good context around the evidence.
Step 2: Get your evidences with SaveTheProof.
Once you know the details you need to know to establish a good context for the proof, it is time to get it.
To get your evidence from a social network like YouTube, SaveTheProof offers its Browsing Session certificate, which allows the user to certify up to 30 minutes of internet browsing through their own web browser, without downloading anything. Once the user chooses the Browsing Session certificate, they can access any public website that is available on the Internet, so the user can log on to YouTube and obtain the evidence they deem necessary for their case. The user will be able to take screenshots of the moments he/she considers most appropriate, and at the end of the browsing session, everything will be stored in video (with audio), in SaveTheProof’s servers. Together with the audiovisual evidence, the screenshots taken during the browsing session will be included in a PDF file, as well as other technical information (metadata).
This will result in a certificate that will have legal validity and eliminate the risk of other parties challenging your evidence for tampering.
If you do not know which type of certificate is best for your case or have any other questions, please contact us at [email protected]
