Tag Archives: evidence

May 20, 2025 · 12:04 PM

Law Firms and Major Enterprises Are Rapidly Moving to X1 Search As Traditional Enterprise Search Becomes Obsolete

By John Patzakis and Chas Meier

Are you tired of wasting hours each week fruitlessly searching across emails, documents, cloud services, and local drives? You’re not alone. Law firms and major enterprises are increasingly recognizing the inherent limitations of legacy enterprise search solutions and turning decisively toward X1 Search.

X1 Search delivers a revolutionary user-based search experience that dramatically boosts productivity. Demand for X1 Search has skyrocketed this year—one major federal agency is expanding from 20,000 to over 40,000 licenses to equip every employee. Nearly half of AMLAW 100 firms now deploy or are actively considering X1. Why this rapid shift?

Traditional enterprise search solutions are fundamentally broken in today’s hybrid-cloud enterprise landscape. They rely heavily on outdated architectures that require mass data duplication and centralization—approaches rendered obsolete by remote work and distributed platforms such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Specifically, traditional tools face:

  1. Scalability Roadblocks: Centralizing terabytes of distributed unstructured data is now effectively impossible in the modern enterprise.
  2. Incompatibility with Modern Platforms: Legacy systems struggle to integrate effectively with platforms like Microsoft 365 due to restrictive APIs and loss of security permissions when the data is copied and exported en masse.
  3. Regulatory and Governance Challenges: Mass duplication of sensitive data violates critical data protection regulations and contradicts fundamental information governance principles. The GDPR specifically mandates data minimization, particularly when viable alternative technologies exist, as evaluated through a Data Privacy Impact Analysis (DPIA).

Employees in modern organizations effectively have two viable search options: the limited native Windows search or the robust, efficient capabilities of X1 Search. Microsoft Copilot itself recently highlighted X1 Search’s advantages:

“X1 Search offers advanced indexing, instant search-as-you-type capabilities, powerful filtering, keyword highlighting, and document/email previews, significantly surpassing standard Windows Search. Moreover, X1 seamlessly searches across emails, documents, cloud storage, archived data, and more—far beyond Windows Search capabilities.”

X1 Search introduces an entirely new, distributed search architecture uniquely suited to today’s enterprise environments:
• Distributed Micro-Indexing: Patented technology ensures secure, permission-aligned indexing, granting employees immediate, secure access to authorized data only.
• No Mass Data Duplication: Interact directly with original documents without unnecessary duplication, ensuring compliance and efficiency.
• True Federated Search: Search instantly and iteratively across M365, Google Workspace, Slack, and local data sources within a single unified search field—a capability unmatched by any other solution.

The latest X1 Search transcends desktop limitations, instantly searching Microsoft Email, Teams, Slack, OneDrive, SharePoint, local files, and now Google Drive and Gmail, all from one intuitive interface. This empowers users to reclaim hours each day, dramatically boosting productivity.

Leave a comment

Filed under Best Practices, Business Productivity Search, Cloud Data, Corporations, Data Audit, Desktop Search, eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, GDPR, Google Workspace, Hybrid Search, Information Governance, Information Management, m365, MS Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 30, 2023 · 12:52 PM

Best Evidence Rule Requires Post-Level Collection for Social Media Evidence

By John Patzakis

The Best Evidence Rule, as codified in Federal Rule of Evidence 1002, provides that an original writing, recording, or photograph is required to prove the contents of the document. This rule was formulated in a paper document dominated era, and aimed to prevent fraud and inaccuracies that could arise from secondary or duplicate evidence. However, the prevalence of electronically stored information (“ESI”) prompted exceptions to this rule when it comes to computer-generated evidence. Specifically, FRE 1001(d) was drafted to provide clarification for how ESI was to be treated under the Best Evidence Rule: “For electronically stored information, ‘original’ means any printout — or other output readable by sight — if it accurately reflects the information.”

FRE 1001(d) means that for most forms of ESI, including electronic documents, emails, digital photos, and video files, an exact copy of those items will suffice under the Best Evidence Rule. And because it is very easy to create an exact copy of electronic evidence (as any eDiscovery practitioner who has ever “de-duped” ESI can attest to), the Best Evidence Rule has been almost forgotten in the ESI era. However, it is very different when it comes to screen shots of social media posts. Because screen shots are truncated images of the full native social media posts, they are not exact copies of the original as defined under FRE 1001(d). In fact, given the unfortunately extensive but erroneous reliance on screenshots of social media evidence, The Best Evidence Rule could be cited far more frequently by opposing counsel seeking to contest the admission of such evidence.

A case out of the federal courts in Texas addressed this issue head on. Edwards v. Junior State of America Foundation, is a civil litigation matter involving the intentional destruction (spoliation) of social media evidence. The plaintiff had deleted his Facebook account resulting in lost evidence critical to the case. The court cited an affidavit submitted by an eDiscovery expert witness who noted that when X1 Social Discovery was used to collect from the Plaintiff’s Facebook account, key evidence that existed prior to the litigation was missing because it had been deleted by the Plaintiff prior to the X1 Social Discovery collection.

As a result of the spoliation established in large part by the X1 Social Discovery examination, the Court imposed severe evidentiary sanctions on the plaintiff, including the exclusion of evidence and claims related to the destroyed Facebook data, and adverse jury instructions.

The plaintiffs’ had sought to offer screenshots as evidence of the Facebook communications instead of the deleted native files. The court ruled that the metadata and full context of the native files were essential to satisfy the Best Evidence Rule. The court held that screenshots were not an output that accurately reflected the substance and context of the native file, since they could not show that the messages were authentic, nor could they “be used to prove that Harper sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.” Failure to produce the native files prejudiced the Defendants, in part, because it deprived them “of the ability to substantiate or refute the authenticity of the alleged messages.” In a key passage the court states:

“Here, the screenshots will not suffice as an ‘original’ because the screenshots are not an ‘output’ that accurately reflects the information. Only native files can ensure authenticity. Additionally, although the Best Evidence Rule allows for an original ‘photograph’ to prove the contents of the photograph, this does not mean that the screenshot here can be used to prove that Harper sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.”

Edwards demonstrates that the collection and preservation of full native social media posts is vital to both that evidence’s authentication and obtaining the full context and substance of the posts under the Best Evidence Rule. The court found that screenshots, which truncate social media posts and omit key metadata, do not suffice. As a result, attorneys should be aware that courts are unlikely to find that screenshots alone are sufficient to authenticate a social media post and will likely insist on the native files. To ensure this data is collected defensibly, attorneys should work with best practices software and methods to preserve and collect social media evidence and underlying metadata so that they can be properly authenticated and admitted in court.

Leave a comment

Filed under Best Practices, Case Law, Corporations, ECA, eDiscovery, ESI, law firm, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

Tagged as , , , ,

July 18, 2023 · 10:58 AM

X1 Social Discovery Integration with Relativity Proves to Be Game Changing in Several High Stakes Matters

By John Patzakis

Social media is a critical source of relevant evidence in nearly every legal matter. However, most tools collect such evidence using print/screenshot methods that generate flat file images that cannot be effectively displayed and analyzed in review platforms. Law firms and other litigants faced a critical but previously unmet requirement for social media data to be displayed and reviewed in Relativity in its native format and parsed so that each individual Facebook post, Tweet or Instagram is displayed as a record in Relativity, with its own associated metadata, photos, indexed text and in-line comments. This allows for the individual Facebook or Instagram posts, Tweets, etc. to be searched, filtered, tagged, and reviewed at the post level, with all associated metadata and comments inline. This also enables the native Relativity AI analytics tools to be applied to this social media data, which is impossible when imported as mere flat file image screenshots. X1 has solved this critical challenge.

With Relativity and RelativityOne being the industry-leading review platform on the market, X1 sought to streamline the export process from X1 Social Discovery to Relativity to provide an efficient and scalable workflow for the abundant eDiscovery and investigations customer base. X1’s game changing social media and web-based data collection solution, X1 Social Discovery, offers the ability to collect and search data from popular social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube), websites, and email utilizing a truly unique approach. X1 Social Discovery’s innovative Relativity integration has uniquely provided the ability collect social media and webpages in their native format at the object (post) level with associated metadata, photos, and in-line comments intact, allowing for individual import for review in RelativityOne as individual records. Social Discovery is the only eDiscovery solution today that enables Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other social media data to be displayed in Relativity at the post level, where each post is an individual record.

In contrast, the alternatives are web plug-in tools that generate flat file image PDFs as its final output. So, if there are 30 social media posts that are in a feed, a single monolithic image PDF will be generated as the collection output. These bulk screenshots are of very limited value as they are not collected in native format, retain no post-level metadata, and are not searchable (absent a secondary and inferior OCR process). This output is practically useless for a review platform (as the entire output is one object).

The X1 Social Discovery Relativity Integration has been successfully utilized throughout multiple organizations including large corporate legal departments, government agencies and law firms for evidentiary purposes within investigations and compliance related matters.

In a recent case that provides a great representative illustration, one of the Top 50 Law Firms in the U.S. was able to successfully use this integration in an employment class action to import over 20,000 Facebook Group posts and other social media items collected by X1 Social Discovery seamlessly into Relativity without any manual processing steps. During the review, they were able, thanks to X1 importing all items as native objects with preserved metadata, inline comments and extracted text, to search, filter and review all the social media items in Relativity. The attorneys and paralegals were able to quickly and easily view all the pieces of a particular post together giving them a comprehensive understanding of the social media content. This capability led to a successful outcome that would simply be impossible without X1 Social Discovery.

To see this critical and unique functionality in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

April 24, 2023 · 3:56 PM

X1 Introduces Cutting-Edge Instagram Support with X1 Social Discovery Version 7

By Larry Gill

Since I joined the X1 team last year as CEO, I have made it my priority to double down on our support and expansion of our X1 Social Discovery solution. To that end, I am excited to announce that we have just launched version 7 of X1 Social Discovery, social media and web collections solution, which includes a new cutting-edge Instagram connector, along with our revamped Facebook support, where all our users now have native post-level collection and parsing to ensure accuracy, key metadata collection, court authentication, and evidentiary completeness of the collected data. Nothing short of those capabilities is acceptable and that is why I can confidently say that X1 Social Discovery is the only solution in the industry capable of delivering all those requirements.

Over the past year, I have spoken to many of our customers and prospects about what they need to support their social media eDiscovery collections and investigations. One thing that became clear: post-level native file collection for social media evidence, including Instagram, is essential.

Other tools simply provide bulk flat file screen shots of social media feeds, and are of very limited value, as they merely provide a screenshot PDF image file without searchable text or metadata, other than what is visible on the image itself. This does not meet the needs of attorneys and paralegals seeking to leverage and admit key social media and website evidence into their cases. For this reason, X1 has put in the work and R&D investment, and, as CEO, I am committed to doing so on an ongoing basis, so that our users would have native post-level collection and parsing as required.

X1 Social Discovery is the only solution to provide native file, post-level Instagram support, and in a manner that is fast and scalable. This enables the following top 5 key benefits for Instagram collections:

  1. Fast and Automated Instagram Feed Capture. X1 Social Discovery v7 captures hundreds of Instagram posts with assorted comments per hour. We have successfully captured several thousand posts in our testing, including individual posts that have hundreds of associated comments and replies. This level of performance is simply impossible with “web plug in” tools.
  2. Post-Level Collection, Filtering and Production. The ability to search, tag, sort, authenticate (with their own hash value), and produce individual Instagram posts with X1 is essential for an efficient and effective workflow. Other tools require “all or nothing” production & hash of the flat PDF output.
  3. Federated Search and Review. With X1, multiple Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and web page collections can now be searched, sorted, and reviewed in a unified manner. No other tools on the market have an integrated review capability.
  4. Robust Post-Level Metadata Capture. X1 Captures over a dozen unique item-level metadata fields for an individual Instagram post. Other tools only record general URLs of the bulk collection, a hash of the entire “all or nothing” bulk PDF export containing up to hundreds of individual posts, with no individual hash values or metadata fields specific to any of those posts.
  5. Deep Integration with Relativity for Review. X1 custom-developed a Relativity .RAP file that enables social media data (now including Instagram) to be displayed natively – at the post-level — in full context in Relativity, the same as it appears in X1 Social Discovery. All metadata is overlayed, and the comments are kept in line and in context. Importantly, each Instagram post collected by X1 is treated as an individual record in Relativity, instead of the bulk export from other tools being a single record. This enables efficient review as well as robust data analytics of social media evidence in Relativity.

To see all these exciting new features in X1 Social Discovery v7, please watch our product tour on-demand. Alternatively, we would welcome the opportunity to brief you and your colleagues directly. Please contact us to speak with a member of the X1 Team.

Leave a comment

Filed under collection, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, Information Governance, Information Management, Legal Ethics & Social Media, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 4, 2022 · 9:49 AM

Flawed Collection Methods Prevent TAR and Other Applications of Analytics on Social Media Evidence

By John Patzakis

Every litigator and eDiscovery practitioner is aware of the critical importance of analytics as a tool to support their cases. AI-driven analytics supercharges compliance investigations, data security, privacy audits, and Technology Assisted Review (TAR) of documents, emails, social media and other web-based items. AI machine learning employs mathematical models to assess enormous datasets to gain deep insights into key information. This enables the identification of discrete and hidden patterns in thousands of emails, social media posts and other electronic files to categorize and cluster documents by concepts, content, or topic.

However, it is important to understand that such a powerful capability requires the extracted text and metadata of the subject documents, emails and social media posts. So when examiners resort to screenshots, including flat file PDF image captures, this prevents the use of game-changing analytics in your case. Screenshots do not natively preserve the subject text or metadata and are useless if fed into analytics engines. This is a major disconnect with many eDiscovery practitioners who may not fully understand that by utilizing print screen, they are forfeiting their clients’ ability to utilize otherwise game-changing analytics on the social media and other web-based data they are collecting.

Bobby Malhotra, eDiscovery team co-lead at Munger Tolles highlighted this point in a recent webinar addressing the importance of native file collection for social media evidence: “If you are on a matter that is going to be very data intensive in terms of collecting voluminous amounts of data from social media sites, and you are going to need to mine through that data to understand what happened and get the relevant context (with an AI engine) the only way to really do that is to collect the full text and metadata, and so, screenshots will not suffice.” Malhotra emphasized that this is a “really critical point regarding the analytics process as a lot of people don’t think about that.”

In fact, not only will screenshots omit text and metadata, the screenshot will create a false record if introduced into the review and analytics workflow as the metadata of the screenshot itself will be completely different that the metadata of the original native object. For these reasons, it is important under an attorney’s duty of competency related to eDiscovery technology, to understand the implications of not collecting social media and web based evidence in native format, and strongly consider utilizing best practices technology to properly collect and preserve this critical source of evidence.

Leave a comment

Filed under Authentication, Best Practices, Data Audit, eDiscovery & Compliance, ESI, law firm, Preservation & Collection, Social Media Investigations, Social Media Metadata

Tagged as , , , , ,