Taking Facebook at Face Value: The Refugee Review Tribunal’s Use of Social Media Evidence

Abstract

This article argues that the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) is placing excessive weight on evidence gathered from social media in reviewing refugee decisions. It will be argued that the RRT is assigning high truth values to information concerning applicants and others from social media. This is despite detailed research that suggests that social media rarely conveys accurate or consistent information about an individual. In taking such evidence at face value the RRT is misunderstanding social media and potentially making errors in its decisions.