As Joe Lycett tackles fake news… we tackle fake legal advice
Joe Lycett, popular British comedian, is known for his stunts and pranks. He’s hit the headlines recently for purposely planting fake news stories about things that never actually happened. Lycett explained he hopes the stories will “take up space that more hateful or polarising fake news might otherwise have used.”
Also this month, Sydney man Benjamin Cohen was wrongly named as the Bondi Junction killer. Australia’s Channel Seven announced his name with no confirmation from the police and even after they apologised and retracted their statement once they were alerted to the mistake, there were more than 70,000 posts linking Cohen’s name to the attack on social media platform, X, that evening.
There is so much content on the internet that it can be hard to know what’s true and what’s not. With little regulations about what people can post and a lack of education around what you can trust, it creates a complex problem in the legal industry too. We can’t emphasise enough how important it is that you seek legal advice from the correct places.
So, we’ve collated some top tips to keep yourself right when looking for legal advice online.
- If the info is on a website, is that website genuine? Is the advice coming from a genuine law firm’s site or has it been posted to a social forum such as reddit? If it is on a social forum then you must be more vigilant.
- Does the person giving advice operate in your country? Different countries, different laws. Even Scotland and England can massively differ.
- Check credentials. If it’s on social media, do you know for a fact that person is qualified to give advice?
- Check the dates. Things that were true 2 years ago might not necessarily be the case anymore.
- Does the information you’re reading sound too good to be true? It probably is.
Using the internet to gather information can be great but we’d always recommend you speak to a solicitor with that area of expertise before you risk believing and spreading false advice.