• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, December 10, 2009

News organizations like The Associated Press, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have recently issued official social-networking policies that cover matters such as whether reporters can friend sources or post controversial political opinions.

Now a committee of the Florida Supreme Court has weighed in on social networking. In a recent opinion, a judicial ethics advisory committee has said that judges may not friend any lawyers who practice before them on sites like Facebook.

"Listing lawyers who may appear before the judge as 'friends' on a judge's social networking page reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer "friends" are in a special position to influence the judge," the committee wrote.

The decision was not unanimous; a minority of the panel unsuccessfully argued that the word 'friend' on a site like Facebook "merely conveys the message that a person so identified is a contact or acquaintance."

The Florida opinion has drawn some criticism by cyberlaw experts. Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle says the opinion reflects a double standard for online and offline conduct. "Judges and lawyers interact socially all the time," he says. "They might have lunch together, play golf together, engage in recreational activities -- and most ethical codes understand that."

" Just by becoming a judge, you don't forfeit your personal life," he adds.

At the same time, some judges have been accused of crossing an ethical line on Facebook. In June, North Carolina judge B. Carlton Terry Jr. was reprimanded for friending an attorney who was appearing in an ongoing child custody case in front of Terry. And in October, a judge in Staten Island, N.Y. was transfered out of the borough for his Facebook use, including his alleged requests that lawyers become his friend.

It's not just the legal profession that's struggling with whether the use of social networking services can create the perception of bias. Earlier this year, a Washington Post editor's Tweets spurred the paper to ban employees from making posts that could cast doubt on "the impartiality of our news judgment."