The legal risks of posting on social media

Under Dutch law, a social media post is treated as a publication, in the same way a newspaper article is. What you say can be defamatory, what you show can breach someone’s portrait rights (portretrecht), and what you disclose about your employer can end your job. The rules do not relax because the audience is a few hundred followers rather than a print run.

Can you be held liable for what you say about others?

Yes. Damaging someone’s reputation by stating facts that are untrue can amount to both a criminal offence and a civil wrong (an unlawful act), and the more serious form applies where you knew the statement was false. Courts weigh your freedom of expression against the other person’s reputation, and the key question is usually how well the allegation was supported by the facts available to you at the time you posted it.

Are you responsible for reposting someone else’s message?

Yes. Sharing does not neutralise the risk: republication is itself a publication, and forwarding an unlawful statement to a new audience can make you liable for that act, even if you did not write the original words.

What are the rules for posting a photo of someone else?

Publishing a recognisable photograph of another person can breach their portrait rights where they have a reasonable interest in opposing it; the fact that a photo was taken in a public place does not by itself imply consent to publish it. Where the photograph was commissioned by the person shown, you need their permission to publish it. Separately, copyright in a photograph belongs to whoever took it, so reposting an image you found online, without a licence, is normally an infringement of the photographer’s rights, regardless of who is pictured in it.

Can a post about work cost you your job?

This is where most avoidable damage occurs. Posting confidential information about your employer, a client, or a case can breach an express confidentiality clause and, separately, your duty to behave as a good employee. Dutch courts have upheld dismissals for posts that were insulting about an employer or that disclosed internal information, and have equally rejected dismissals where a post was mild, private in character, or provoked by the employer.

The outcome tends to turn on the same factors each time: how public the post was, how identifiable the employer, how serious the content, whether the employer had a social media policy you knew about, and whether a warning would have been the proportionate response instead of dismissal. An employer with a clear, communicated policy is in a far stronger position than one without, and so, in practice, is an employee who can point to the absence of one.

Do old posts come back to affect you later?

Posts are durable and searchable, and they surface in contexts you never wrote them for. An application for a Certificate of Good Conduct (VOG) does not turn on your social media history, but an employer’s own search, an insurer’s investigation, a custody dispute, or a personal injury claim frequently does. Content posted years earlier is regularly produced as evidence in exactly these situations.

What should you do before you post?

Assume everything you post is public and permanent, even in a closed group. Separate fact from opinion, and be able to back up anything you state as fact. Avoid posting about a live dispute, your employer, or a client. Ask before publishing a recognisable photo of someone else. And if you have already posted something you regret, deleting it is sensible but not a cure: screenshots outlive the post.

In summary

• Dutch defamation, portrait rights, and copyright rules apply to social media posts in the same way they apply to any other publication.
• Sharing or reposting someone else’s content can make you liable, independently of the original author.
• Posting about your employer, a client, or a case can be a dismissal ground, especially without a clear, known social media policy.
• Deleting a post limits future visibility but does not undo a publication that has already been seen or saved.
• Treat anything you post, including in closed groups, as public and permanent.

Frequently asked questions

Can I be sued for a post I later deleted? Yes. Deleting a post can limit further spread but does not undo the publication that already took place, and screenshots or archived copies can still be produced as evidence.

Does it matter if my account is private or the group is closed? A smaller or closed audience can be relevant to how serious a breach is judged to be, but it does not remove your liability: a private post can still be reshared, screenshotted, or produced as evidence.

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