Let's start with the following premise: thedirty.com is a tasteless website. In addition to a bit of celebrity gossip and paparazzi-type pictures, the site also invites anyone to post pictures – often revealing, embarrassing, or insulting – of others for comment by users and, sometimes, the site's proprietor.

At a recent presentation during which I reviewed a number of cases and court rule changes regarding juror use of social media and the Internet during trial, an audience member asked me why American courts appeared to be so lax in the face of such juror misbehavior, such as the Texas case in which a juror who sent a "friend" request to the defendant in a personal injury case

Jurisdiction: 

• Florida

The Federal Judicial Center has released a study which concludes that "detected social media use by jurors is infrequent, and that most judges have taken steps to ensure jurors do not use social media in the courtroom," and implies that juror use of the Internet and social media during trial is not a growing problem.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has reversed a murder conviction – and death sentence – in a case where one juror tweeted during trial, while another fell asleep. Both these problems, the court said, constituted juror misconduct requiring reversal and a new trial. Erickson Dimas-Martinez v. State, 2011 Ark. 515 (Dec. 8, 2011).

The Blog of the Legal Times reports that the Superior Court of the District of Columbia – the local trial court for the nation's capital – has issued a new administrative order regarding use of electronic devices in the courthouse.

Basketball Wives: Los Angeles lives! And one of the reasons is an athlete's Twitter habit.

It lacks the drama of the various flavors of "Law and Order" or the intrigue of a John Grisham novel. But the video of a July 21 hearing on the plaintiff's request for a preliminary injunction in Gauck v. Karamian, Civil No.

Social media are abuzz about English Premier League footballer ("soccer player" to us Yanks) Ryan Giggs, who has obtained an order from a British court requiring Twitter to reveal the identity of various tweeters who identified him as having had an affair with model and Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas.

The U.S.

The Office of Fair Trading, the British equivalent of the United States Federal Trade Commission, has determined that the hiring of bloggers and other social media contributors to promote particular products without adequate disclosure of the relationship may violate U.K. consumer protection laws. Handpicked Media Ltd (Handpicked Media), Case Ref. CRE-E-25932 (OFT Dec. 13, 2010).