Social networking sites are so popular, all of your friends have some kind of presence. We get on to kid our friends and tell about what is going on in our office and at home without apparent regard for the watching eyes that we know nothing about.
What we do not think about, as we become part of these social networking sites is that we are setting up a record of our activities, thoughts and feelings that are displayed to the world. The comments that we make or the pictures that we put up on these sites are done with complete innocence but we forget that in a divorce situation innocence can be taken advantage of in court.One comment that I have heard is that, “Only my friends see what I put up”. This is true but sometimes we forget, in the heat of building our friends on these sites, that sometimes our “friends” are also the friends of our soon-to-be-ex-spouse. Maybe better put, they may be better friends of your spouse than you or have other motives to broadcast or keep entries that you have put up on a site. Some of these innocent comments can come back to bite you later in a mediation or court situation.
Another comment that I have heard is that, “I can remove it and it is gone”. Once something has been published on the web, there will be some kind of record of it somewhere for many years to come or possibly forever. You have no control of the reader who might copy and paste your comment or picture and put it on their hard drive for future use. Be careful what you innocently put up on the web – that simple comment may cost you thousands in the future.
David Walden 925-484-4030 ext. 26
Very interesting… i wanted to ask though, how does it really hurt us? Divorces here are “no fault” and property is split 50-50 anyway so what if i am flirting with an old flame on facebook and it gets discovered? how would that make me “lose” more in a divorce…
Some divorces go smoothly while others do not. Most start out to make the entire process amicable – then sometimes something happens. They see you with their best friend, they find out that you were dating while still married to them or there is something financial that brings in the attorneys. The attorney is the negotiator and is likely to follow the path they are most familiar with and if that is litigation then no holds are barred. The job is to win and public sources of information are open game.
My point is that a person going though a divorce should keep a low profile. They must realize that a simple entry on a social networking site or in an email could be brought into court or into the mediation to inflame the situation. Dividing 50/50 sounds good in theory but in practice it could be very troublesome. That special collection of beer glasses could be yours or split with lesser value (remember 50/50):-) Anyone who has completed a divorce will likely admit that they could have done it better.