By AZE.US
Photos, videos and other content posted as a WhatsApp Status should not automatically be considered public information, according to Azerbaijani lawyer Akram Hasanov.
Hasanov told Demokrat.az that WhatsApp Status updates are generally visible only to people included in the user’s contacts or selected audience.
Republishing such material on social media or another public platform without the person’s consent could therefore raise privacy concerns.
“The person shares the status not with every internet user, but only with people in their contacts,” Hasanov said.
“If a photo, video or other information is then taken and distributed to a wider audience, it may be evaluated differently from content that was public from the beginning.”
The lawyer said the key consideration is the audience for which the material was originally intended. If a post was restricted to contacts, friends or another limited group, sharing it more broadly without permission should be considered in the context of privacy and confidentiality.
The situation may be different when users publish content through an unrestricted Facebook profile or another platform where anyone can view it. In that case, Hasanov said, it may be more difficult for the user to argue that another person made already-public information public.
However, open access does not give others unlimited rights to reuse the material. Copyright protections may still apply, the original creator should be credited, and photos, videos or written content should not be distorted or used in a way that violates the author’s rights.
Whether republishing is permissible therefore depends largely on whether the original post was intended for a limited audience or made openly available to the public.
AZE.US