Contributed by Kelly D. Thames, Attorney & Counselor at Law, kthames@steele-law.com
We have entered a new era where people put their most private thoughts on the world wide web. Younger generations are so accustomed to doing this that they don’t process the consequences of telling the internet community that they are “partying” or partaking in other irresponsible and/or illegal behavior, even when they are going through a divorce or child custody battle.
In family law cases, especially in child custody battles, this can leave parties vulnerable. Once you put it out there on the “interwebs,” it is there. Even if you delete your post or pictures, it’s not really gone and if someone sees it, they can take a screen shot of it and preserve it forever.
Divorce and child custody battles are very emotional times for people and sometimes parties like to air their grievances to all their “friends” on social networking sites. But are these “friends” really your friends? If you play games on these sites, you may have added people that you don’t actually know, or don’t realize that you actually know.
A word of warning, not as a lawyer, but as someone that has common sense: Even if you are not going through a divorce or a parentage case, if you don’t want your mother or your boss to see the photo or status post, don’t post it. And don’t add “friends” who you don’t know; people are not always operating with the best intentions on these websites.
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