Civil and Legal Significance of Social Media Accounts

Abstract

The paper reveals the features and civil legal significance of accounts in social networks. It is proved that an account in a social network is characterized by features of an object of civil rights: the ability to satisfy private property and personal non-property interests of subjects; discreteness; legal binding; the presence of a normative and functional connection with the civil law system. It is shown that the integration of accounts into the civil law system occurs at the following levels: 1) the civil legal personality of the account holder; 2) the civil legal grounds for acquiring the right to an account in a social network; 3) the civil legal essence of actions to use the account, the production of «administrative» acts; 4) the civil legal regime of the results of intellectual activity and means of individualization that arise within the framework of the functioning of the account; 5) the civil consequences of using the account, varying depending on the specifics of the actions of the subject; 6) civil legal ways to protect the rights to the account and to protect the information contained therein; 7) civil liability applied in case of violations of the rights of account holders or their commission of offenses. The author supports the thesis on the application of the principles of civil law in interaction with the principles of information law in the system of legal relations arising from the use of the account. The differentiation of the legal status of the account holder (user) in the context of relative and absolute legal relations is shown. The features of the turnover of the account are determined, the instrumental value of the account as a legal means of achieving the goals of the subjects is revealed. The author identifies some problems of legal guarantee of property and non-property interests of users in the case of application of public law restrictive measures to social networks. The paper raises a question on the need for international legal regulation of relations in the field of cross-border functioning of social networks. The author makes a conclusion about the peculiarities of the civil law regime of accounts in social networks and substantiates the necessity of using contractual instruments to ensure the property and non-property interests of account holders.